


Tonight, we are the king and queen

by thedisassociation



Category: Glee
Genre: Angst, Childhood, F/F, Friendship, Halloween, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedisassociation/pseuds/thedisassociation
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter what, Rachel and Santana will always have Halloween.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All the neighborhood names in this fic are fictitious. I couldn't find any reliable data on real neighborhoods in Lima, so I made them up.

_In masks and gown we haunt the street  
_ _And knock on doors for trick or treat.  
_ _Tonight we are the king and queen,  
_ _For oh tonight it's Halloween!  
_ Jack Prelutsky

* * *

It's a little early for trick-or-treaters, but the ringing doorbell doesn't surprise Rachel. When she swings the door open, she sees two people standing there. The first person is tall and wearing all black - black shoes, black skinny jeans, and a fitted black hoodie. They have on a simple white mask with black circles painted around the eyes and on the lips, shrouded in slight shadow by the hood coming up over the person's head. Holding the person's hand is a little girl with long dark hair and bright brown eyes. She is dressed as an angel, her gold halo shining in the light from the hallway.

The irony immediately strikes Rachel and she stifles a laugh. "Hello, Camila," she said kindly. "You look beautiful."

"Thanks," the girl grins up at her shyly. "I like your costume."

"Thank you," she answers. Like the other person, she is wearing a simple costume (only because her quest requested it) - a simple black dress complimented by a purple shawl and black witches hat, which she had draped in purple fabric to match her cape. Her black leggings also had hints of purple in them. It's not quite as flashy and spectacular as Rachel wants to dress for what will likely be her last Halloween in Lima (her next ones will be in New York when she's in college), but her companion is adamant that they don't draw much attention to themselves.

"Don't be shy now, Camila," comes a muffled voice from under the mask. "You remember Rachel."

The small girl nods. "Yeah, she's our Halloween friend."

The masked-head bobs up and down. "And if you're good she'll give us all her candy because she can't eat it."

Rachel scoffs. "Actually, a surprising number of candy is vegan-friendly," she informs them. "But I promise that you can have all the candy that I _can't_ eat."

The mask rises up and the person takes the little girl's hand. "You ready to go? I got kids to scare," Santana smirks.

Rachel rolls her eyes, grabbing her keys and her cell phone and closing the front door behind her. The three make their way out to Santana's car, Camila walking in the middle and skipping gleefully, muttering something about chocolate and caramel.

"I must say, Santana, your costumes in the past have been much scarier," Rachel says, sliding into the passenger seat. "Just who or what are you supposed to be?"

Santana's eyes widen. "I'm Masky."

Rachel stares at her blankly. "Is that name supposed to mean anything to me?"

Camila gasps in the backseat, setting her orange pumpkin bucket in her lap. "It's from _Marble Hornets_ ," she cries. At Rachel's blank look, her jaw drops and she levels a glare at her older sister. "Santí, she doesn't know what _Marble Hornets_ is. I thought you said she knew awesome Halloween stuff."

Rachel crosses her arms, huffing. Santana laughs, pulling a piece of hard candy out of her pocket and throwing it to her sister in the backseat. "Play nice," she warns, "or that's the only piece of candy you'll get tonight." She shoots Rachel a playful wink. "And Rachel knows tons of cool Halloween stuff, about like goblins and witches and fairies and shit."

"Santana, please refrain from cursing in front of the children tonight."

Santana scoffs. "Yeah, okay, whatever," she says. Her words are dismissive but they both know she'll do as Rachel asks. "So I thought we'd hit up the Northside first. They have the best candy."

Rachel nods, agreeing with Santana. Northside _definitely_ has the best candy.

* * *

Rachel Berry is eight years old when she meets Santana Lopez.

She's wearing a beautiful princess costume for Halloween. It's all long flowing ribbons and detailed beadwork. She plaits her hair as best she can (her fathers are useless) and wears a pair of heels to keep the dress from dragging on the ground. She originally wanted to make herself a costume, but she hadn't been exactly sure how to do so and her dads are as bad at costumes as they are at hair; their solution was to take her out and get her the most expensive costume they could find.

And it _is_ gorgeous, but ultimately it slows her down. She wants to run from house-to-house with the other kids, not get stuck walking slowly because she can't navigate through yards in her outfit. She quickly gets annoyed at her heels always sticking in patches of grass as she tries to walk. It doesn't help her mood that her dads have stopped yet again to talk to some other parents.

Scowling, Rachel crosses her arms and glares at her parents, hoping that they will turn and pay attention to her soon. She doesn't want to resort to yelling, but if she needs to, she is fully prepared to unleash her anger on them. The sun is already down and night is fully upon them, signaling to Rachel that she doesn't have much time to collect all the candy that she can carry.

Northside is a nice neighborhood, one of the nicest in Lima. But that also means it's a gated community, and while the people who live there are nice enough to open their gates to the masses and give out better candy than anyone else in town, their courtesy only extends so far. Northside closes its gates at nine o'clock, meaning that the kids who come from other areas to trick-or-treat have to leave early and Rachel's fathers are seriously cutting into the time she has left to trick-or-treat.

Just as Rachel gets ready to march over to her laughing fathers and throw a tantrum, something grabs her. She tries to scream, but a hand clamps over her mouth. It smells like plastic and rubber is shaped like some kind of claw. Rachel struggles against the person holding her and before she knows what's happened, someone clad all in black is running away from her with the bag that holds all the candy she's collected.

"Hey!" she calls out, stomping her foot. "Get back here right now!"

The boy (because only boys would be so cruel) doesn't stop, and if anything, he runs faster as she yells after him. Rachel looks around frantically and sees that her dads are preoccupied. Her candy is getting away, clutched in the hands of someone running down the street as fast as he can. Rachel grabs her skirt and takes off after him, sprinting with difficulty in her nice shoes. The thief rounds a corner, several bags swinging in his arms.

He's taller than Rachel (which isn't a feat considering her height), but Rachel is angry and determined. They pass several houses that Rachel doesn't recognize and continue turning corners until they reach one of Northside's many small parks. Her legs hurt and she's struggling to stay on her heeled feet as she watches the thief reach a tree and pull himself into it, climbing up a few branches.

Rachel stands below, clutching her side and breathing heavily. "Come down here right now!" she yells. "Give me my candy back!"

The boy pulls off his mask and Rachel sees that _he_ is actually a _she_. The girl looks about her age and has long dark hair that unfurls out from under the mask she removes. The girl swings her legs over the side of the branch and pulls one of the several bags she's undoubtedly stolen into her lap, digging through it in search of some candy. "Come up and get it, _princessa,_ " she taunts, smirking down at Rachel. (Yes, even by the tender age of eight, Santana has perfected the smirk that she will later become known for.)

"No," Rachel shouts, putting her hands on her hips. "You bring that candy down here. It's _mine._ "

"Nah, I think it's mine now," the other girl says simply.

Rachel's eyes well up with tears, because it just isn't fair. She has on this nice, but restricting dress that cost a lot of money and is now stained at the bottom with dirt. Her feet ache and her chest hurts. And now she's in a park she doesn't know in a neighborhood she doesn't know with a person she doesn't know. And to top it all off, she doesn't even have the candy that she worked so hard to collect.

So Rachel just stands at the bottom of the tree crying because she doesn't know what else to do.

The girl in the tree bites her lip. "Come on, don't be a baby," she says, which just makes Rachel cry harder. "Aw, jeez. _Fine_ ," she declares. The girl tucks the bags of candy she's stolen securely in her arms and climbs back down a few branches before dropping to the ground easily.

Rachel's lip quivers as she looked at the girl in front of her.

"If I give you your candy will you stop crying?" Rachel nods and the girl holds out her arm, displaying several bags with varying amounts of candy. "Which one's yours?"

"Um," Rachel stutters. "I don't know. They all look the same."

The other girl rolls her eyes. "Just pick one. I don't care."

"Can I have one with a lot of candy?"

"No," she replies. "And you're lucky I'm even giving you any of _my_ candy."

The other girl is glaring at her, so Rachel grabs the first bag she sees. It happens to have the most candy it and she smiles, pleased with herself. "That's not your candy," she says. "You stole it."

"Whatever," the girl mutters says with a tilt of her head. "I've got it now, so that means it's mine."

They stand there staring at each other for a moment and Rachel looks the other girl over. She has on a skeleton costume, a black jumpsuit with white bones attached to it. She has two different gloves, though, one resembling a lobster claw and the other a skeletal hand that matches her jumpsuit. The mask she's holding is a pumpkin face, contorted into an evil grin.

"What are you supposed to be?" Rachel asks.

The girl shrugs. "A monster," she says.

"It's weird," Rachel responds. "I've never seen a monster that looked like _that._ "

She glares at Rachel. "It scared you, didn't it?"

Rachel plays with the handle on the bag she's holding, looking around at the park. It's completely dark now, the only light coming from the dim streetlights standing over the road next to it. There's no one around at all and Rachel frowns, nodding.

The girl doesn't say anything as she stuffs her mask into one of the bags she's carrying. She turns away from Rachel and starts walking back the way they came. At least, she thinks that's the way they came from. Rachel takes a quick look around, finding nothing but October fog and an empty park and she quickly runs after the other girl.

"Where are you going?" she asks when she catches up to the girl.

"Home," she replies shortly, finding a candy bar and taking a few quick bites of it.

Home. The word makes Rachel sigh as she brings one of her lips between her teeth, biting on it. Rachel's going to be in trouble, really big trouble, when her dads find her. She knows her address, has it memorized because her dads made her, but she actually doesn't know how to get to her house, especially not when she's really far away from it.

"Why are you following me?" the candy thief asks.

Rachel walks beside her, frowning. "I don't know where I am," she says.

"Well you don't live with me, so go away," is the response she gets.

Rachel tries not to cry again, but her earlier tears are still too fresh and she does anyway. "Please let me come with you," she cries. "Maybe your mom will let me call my daddies. I don't know how to get home and what if something happens to me? My dad says that little kids get kidnapped and hurt by themselves and that's why I'm supposed to stay with an adult," she finishes.

The girl sighs with a flourish and hands Rachel a chocolate bar. "I don't like nuts," she explains, shooting Rachel a look that dares her to challenge her words. "You can walk with me I guess. Just stop crying already."

"Oh, thank you thank you thank you," Rachel smiles, sniffling and grabbing the girls arm as she bobbles a little bit on her heeled shoes.

The girl makes a big show of pulling away from Rachel and glaring at her. She leads them down the street and around a couple of turns before the silence starts to get to Rachel. She's a loud child and she can't stand the quiet, not when there are songs to be sung and words to be said. Her thief-turned-escort doesn't look keen on talking to her, but that's never stopped Rachel before.

"I'm Rachel Berry," she says smartly, holding her hand out because she's been taught that proper introductions include a handshake.

Her companion doesn't take it, however, just digs around in her stolen bags of candy for something to eat. "Santana," she says by way of introduction.

Rachel drops her hand. "That's a pretty name," she responds.

Santana shrugs. "S'okay."

They walk in silence for a bit longer, and this time, Rachel is okay with it because Santana definitely doesn't want to talk to her and she doesn't want to make the other girl mad enough to leave her behind. She absentmindedly pulls the wrapper off of the chocolate bar Santana gave her and starts munching on it, humming just because she can't help herself. Santana surprises her by joining in her song, some old classic rock song that her daddies always sing, and they hum it together for a while, singing little bits out loud when they remember the words.

The fog is getting heavier and with each passing second, Rachel knows that the amount of trouble she's in is growing. "How much longer do you think we'll be?" she asks.

Santana glances around. "Few minutes, maybe," she says, but she frowns when she says it and Rachel's heart drops.

"Are you sure you know where we're going?" she wonders

"Of course I do," Santana shoots back, clearly annoyed. " _I_ live here."

Santana turns a corner, glancing around her. When Rachel stares at her unsure, she sets her face with resolution and storms down the street. When they reach the end of it, she looks around again. "Santana, are we lost? My dads are going to kill me."

"No! Stop asking that," the taller girl says. "I know where we are!"

She grabs Rachel's hand and pulls her around another corner, marching them both down the sidewalk. After a moment, she seems to realize that she's holding on to the shorter girl and she lets go of her, going through her candy bags again - this time until she pulls out two caramels.

Rachel looks nervous, her eyes darting all around her. She finds only houses she doesn't know and yards she's never seen. There aren't any trick-or-treaters to be seen, which doesn't comfort her. "Where are all the kids?"

Santana shrugs. "It's late. Northside is lame and they make everyone go home early."

Rachel nods, biting her lips. Santana hands her one of her caramels and she eats it greedily. The sugar and the sweetness flow through her veins and somehow make it easier to deal with the fact that they're probably a little lost on dark streets with shadows dancing all around them.

Santana notices a sign, reading it aloud to herself slowly. "Yay," she says with little enthusiasm. "I know where we are now," she tells Rachel. "Told you."

After a couple more turns, these taken with much greater confidence, Santana stops them again. "Hold open your bag," she says.

Rachel does as she's instructed, because Santana's been giving her candy all night (way more than she originally took from Rachel) and Rachel is happy to take whatever else she wants to give. Santana diligently goes through all her bags, pulling out candy bars and chocolates and every fun-size something-or-other that has nuts in it and dropping them into Rachel's opened bag. She pulls a face. "It's not cause I like you," she says. "I just don't like nuts."

Rachel nods and smiles, just happy to have someone who's being nice to her. The kids at her school tease her, making fun of everything from how she dresses to the fact that she has two dads. She doesn't believe that Santana doesn't like her at least a little bit, but she lets the lie slide because Santana's been treating her better than any of the other kids she knows, giving her heaps of candy and helping her get home.

As they come around another corner, Rachel recognizes the street they're on. She spots the horrible scarecrow sitting in someone's yard and she remembers that she almost cried when it jumped up and yelled at her. It's flat now, lying on a bench on someone's front porch.

"Rachel!" she hears. Her father, Hiram, runs over to her, taking her into his arms. "Where on earth have you been, young lady?" he demands. "Do you know how worried we've been?"

Her other dad, Leroy, comes over to them and hugs Rachel before he stands up and puts a hand on Hiram's back. "Rachel, you know you can't just go running off like that," he says. "What if something had happened to you?"

Rachel looks at the ground, scuffing her feet across the pavement. "I'm sorry," she tells her fathers. "I just got lost."

"You were supposed to stay where you were until we were ready to go to the next house," Hiram replies, his voice rising.

"I know," she says, biting her lip. She hates being in trouble, hates it more than anything else.

"We went to the park," she hears behind her. Santana steps up next to her. "I live over there and I know all the streets and stuff," she says, pointing to a large house down the street.

Rachel looks at her gratefully.

Leroy frowns down at them though and Hiram still looks upset. Rachel knows that it's useless for either of them to bother trying to explain or make excuses. "It's not safe for either of you to go wandering off like that," Leroy says to them. "You're both too young to be off by yourselves."

"I think you should run on home now," Hiram says to Santana, who shrugs. "Rachel, say goodbye to your friend. And don't think that you're not grounded for this little stunt."

Rachel's frown deepens, because not only is she going to be confined to her room, but she has to say goodbye to Santana. They stare at each other for a second before Rachel leans forward and lays a quick kiss to Santana's cheek. When she pulls away, Santana's eyes are wide and her cheeks are tinged pink.

"Thanks for helping me," Rachel says.

"Yeah, no problem," Santana stutters. She gives Rachel a quick hug, and Rachel feels something being dropped into the pocket of her dress. Before she can say anything, Santana runs away, her hair flying behind her and bags swinging in her arms.

When they climb in the car, Hiram takes Rachel's candy, telling her that she's in trouble and she's already had enough sweets for one night. "You can have it back in a couple of days," he says.

Rachel pouts, but when she stuffs her hands into her pockets, she finds a couple of candy bars and some hard candies and smiles.

* * *

The next day, Rachel finds out that Santana doesn't go to her school. She asks everyone she knows if they've ever even heard of someone by that name. Mostly, her classmates do what they always - blatantly ignore her or tell her to go away and be weird somewhere else. Undeterred, Rachel even asks a few teachers and the office secretary.

Noah Puckerman is the only person she finds who knows someone by the name of Santana, the daughter of one of his mom's friends. Rachel decides to start spending a lot more time with Noah.

* * *

Her ninth Halloween is going to be the best one yet. She has that nagging feeling in the back of her mind that it's going to be perfect, because for the first time ever, Rachel has other kids to go trick-or-treating with and her dads won't be there with them. Her parents aren't really fond of Noah and Santana, but they agree to let the three kids go out together as long as Santana's older brother Diego goes with them and they don't go to Northside (something about Santana being the kind of influence who leads kids away from their parents if they're in her own neighborhood.) It's decided that they'll trick-or-treat in Noah's neighborhood and that Diego will drive Noah home before he brings Santana and Rachel back to the Lopez house for a sleepover.

Rachel decides to be a witch because she's been watching _Into the Woods_ repeatedly for weeks and Bernadette Peters is the best witch she's ever seen in her life. Her dress isn't an exact match to the one from the musical, but she does have a really bright red cape, so it's close enough for her. She remembers to wear sensible shoes this time, mostly because Noah says they aren't stopping if she can't keep up.

The boy walks on her left side, wearing a dinosaur costume that his mom picked out for him. It's green and has spikes that go all the way down the middle, from the top of his head to the tail. He complains because his mom made him wear it and it's a 'baby' costume, but that doesn't stop him from spending the entire night roaring loudly at the top of his lungs and calling himself the Puckasaurus.

On Rachel's other side, Santana is dressed as a vampire. She has a dress similar to Rachel's, as many child costume dresses in Lima seemed to be almost the same, purchased at the same stores and from the same companies. Santana even has a cape like Rachel does, but hers is black and has a high collar. The taller girl has plastic fangs in her mouth that make it hard for her to talk, and there are fake blood drops painted on to her chin.

Diego lingers behind them as they walk, continually telling them to hurry up so he can go to a party. They go door-to-door together and he leans against fences and rails along the way, catching up to them after every three or four houses. A couple of times, he pushes Santana around and Rachel glares at him.

There's a group of girls ahead of them who are definitely a few years younger than them, dressed as sparkly princesses and fairies. They're all glitter and wands and pink frills and lace, giggling in a group together and whispering secrets in each other's ears.

Rachel watches with a frown as Santana creeps up on them, grinning. She throws her cape up and hisses, menacingly threatening to drink their blood. As they yell and jump, Noah climbs over the fence next to them, roaring. In the chaos of the girls screaming and running off to their parents, Santana manages to grab a couple of bags of candy from the frightened girls, who don't even notice.

The pair high-five as they walk back towards Rachel. Santana hands each of them separate bags and keeps one for herself. "You guys shouldn't do that," Rachel says. "It's not very nice."

"Well then you can just give me back the back I got for you," Santana says smartly, holding out her hand.

Rachel's grip on the stolen bag tightens. "No, that's okay," she responds. "Those girls are gone anyway and it would be a shame if all this candy went to waste."

Noah smirks, dumping his stolen candy into the bag he originally brought. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

Her dads are right, she thinks; Noah and Santana are bad influences on her.

They've gone down several streets at this point and their bags, now full of candy that they didn't collect on their own, are fairly full. Rachel's going to be eating candy for weeks, binging on sugar when her dads aren't home and sneaking chocolate at every opportunity. Just thinking about it makes her mouth water and she satisfies herself by chewing on a chocolate toffee.

"Hey!" Diego calls out from down the block. "Come on, we're going home."

Rachel doesn't really like Diego. He's a tall and brooding teenager with shaggy hair. Every time he says something, he sounds like he's whining and Rachel can't stand it. More than that, she can't stand how he treats Santana. Diego always seems to be yelling at her or hitting her or throwing her around, muttering things at her in Spanish that Rachel doesn't need to understand in order to know that they're mean. And he might deny it and say that she's just a stupid kid, but Rachel just knows that that one time Santana almost got hit by a car is his fault because he made her cross the street when the light changed.

Santana crosses her arms. "No," she says, taking her plastic fangs out of her mouth. "We're not done yet."

"Trick-or-treating time is over, _hermana_ ," he smirks, grabbing her arm. "Come on, Puckerman. Berry."

Santana rips her arm away from him. "No way!" she shouts. "It's barely even dark out."

"God, Santana," he mutters, grabbing her again. "I said it's time to go home."

Santana struggles against his grip on her and Rachel takes a step behind Noah because Diego is tall and brooding and kind of scary when he's mad. Diego's jaw is firm and he looks to Rachel like he's about to do something horrible. He glances over at them and seems to notice that he has an audience in the two other kids.

"Fine," he sneers, glaring at them as he releases Santana. "If you want to stay out, stay out. See if I fucking care what happens to you. And we'll just see what mom does when you get home, _puta_."

Diego storms off, his long legs taking him down the block and around the corner before any of them even move. Rachel's been to Santana's house enough times and heard enough yelling and screaming and breaking glass to know that Santana is going to be in a lot of trouble when she gets home. And from the way Santana's rubbing her arm and staring after her brother, she knows it, too.

"Do you think we should all go back to Santana's house now?" Rachel asks, breaking the silence and realizing that she's holding on to Noah's arm. She takes a step away from him and towards the other brunette girl, thinking that they can catch up to Diego and his car is they hurry.

"Nah," Noah drawls. "Santana's gonna to be in trouble no matter what, so we might as well have some fun."

He smirks then, finding some gum in his bag and throwing it at Rachel, who only just manages to catch it. "Santana?" she asks, unsure.

The other girl turns around, nodding. "Yeah, let's do it," she declares.

"I don't know if I can carry any more candy," Rachel says. Despite being the same age as the other two, she's still a little bit smaller than they are and her candy is starting to weigh her down.

Noah shakes his head. "I have a better idea," he starts. "Mike Chang said that there's an old haunted house outside of Fletcher's Grove. We should go check it out."

"Fletcher's Grove?" Rachel questions, biting her lip. "That's far away," she told him. Her dad's favorite coffee shop was near the area, and Rachel remembered that it always took them a long time get there.

"It'll take like, thirty minutes," he says immediately. "You just don't want to go because you're a girl and you're scared."

"I am not!" she protests, putting her hands on her hips. "I just don't think I can walk that far with all my candy," she admits.

Santana moves up beside her, looping her arm through Rachel's. She nods her head across the street and shares a look with Noah. A large group of boys has stopped in front of a house, one of their homes maybe, and they're all climbing off of bicycles and throwing them against the garage before they run inside the house.

Santana smiles deviously. She takes Rachel's bag of candy from her and throws it over her shoulder. "Who says we have to walk?"

As they each grab a bike and run off before anyone notices, Rachel hopes that she isn't going to get in as much trouble as Santana. Noah laughs as he almost runs down a group of five-year-olds, roaring that they should beware the Puckasaurus, Rachel just _knows_ that they're all going to be grounded for weeks.

Santana stops and tugs off her cape. She tells Rachel to do the same with her own cape, and then stuffs both of them into their candy bags, which she hangs off her shoulder. Rachel smiles in thanks and Santana gives her an approving nod. Rachel blushes and decides that it might be worth it.

* * *

Even on bikes, it takes them a good twenty minutes to get to Fletcher's Grove, an area just outside of town. There aren't very many houses in the area and the streetlights are spaced further and further apart. It's darker now and Rachel starts to get nervous. Noah's practically giddy as he rides ahead of them, the hood of his costume flying behind him as he laughs into the cool night air. She wants to ask Santana if they can just turn around and go home. She would ask Noah, but he never listens to her (he listens to Santana, though.) But Rachel spies Santana smiling, and she knows that after this, she might not get to see Santana for a while, so she goes along with them.

Eventually, Noah stops in front of a large house none of them have ever seen. It's brown and imposing, set back from the road a ways. Rachel wouldn't have even known it was there if Noah hadn't stopped them right in front of it. The bushes in front of it are thick and dense, and she can just make out the top of the house from where she is. There are two peaks sticking up over the trees and foliage, each with a dark window that makes her shudder.

"I'm not sure about this," she finally voices, watching the other two get off the bikes. She climbs off her own stolen bike and reluctantly puts down the kickstand. Santana hangs their bags from one of her handlebars and stares up at the same windows Rachel had been staring at.

"Come on," Noah says. He starts walking through the overgrowth with confident steps, but his face shows nerves that look about on par with how she feels. "Girls are such babies."

"We are not," Santana says, taking Rachel's arm and pulling her through the bushes after the boy. Sticks and leaves scratch at her limbs as Santana pulls her along and she has to stop when her dress gets caught. Santana waits for her patiently, holding out her hand for Rachel to take when she manages to free her costume. Rachel takes it gratefully.

When they finally clear the shrubs and sticks between the house and the road, they stop. Noah is already there, standing at the edge of a yard full of tall grass. The house is no less intimidating than it had been from the road; if anything, it's even scarier because there's nothing separating her from it. The light from the street barely penetrates through to them, but Rachel can trace the outline of the house clearly. It's tall and brown, but there's some trace of paint still chipping off it in the corners and near the edges. It's all big windows and shadows that make Rachel wonder how anyone could have ever lived in such a place.

"Good idea, Puckerman," Santana says. "How are we going to see?"

"I'm not Puckerman anymore. I'm the Puckasaurus," he groans. Noah unzips the front of his dinosaur costume, rifling around in it and pulling out a flashlight. He clicks it on and points it at the house, lighting up the front porch. There's an old rocking chair sitting next to the boarded-up door. Somehow, being able to see the house in all its rotting glory doesn't make Rachel feel better.

"Why do you even have that?"

He grins boyishly as he shrugs. "You never know."

Their first collective step onto the wooden porch makes Rachel want to turn away and run. She tries to hold her ground, though, because she wasn't going to be the one to prove Noah Puckerman right. She shudders a little bit when the porch creaks loudly, cutting through the silence of the night around them. Rachel feels Santana squeeze her hand and the two stand close together as Noah leads them.

The door is boarded up, but the wood is loose and it's easy for Noah to push a couple of pieces out of the way for them. "Ladies first," he mutters, holding some wood up for them to go through. Santana takes the flashlight from him before she pulls Rachel through the opening into the house.

They stand there for a moment, their hands still clasped, until Noah steps in behind them. There's dust everywhere, coating the floor and walls in several layers. As Santana shines the flashlight around the entrance hallway, Rachel sees a small table set against the wall next to them, an empty picture frame sitting atop it. There's a painting on the wall ahead of them, faded and worn as it hangs next to a staircase. She can't even tell what it's supposed to be.

Noah takes the flashlight from Santana and starts walking towards the stairs. "Let's go," he says, taking a couple steps up towards the second-story landing. Rachel and Santana are still holding hands and the taller girl wraps her free hand around Rachel's upper arm, squeezing it as they trail after Noah. Rachel doesn't know why Santana's holding on to her; it's all the smaller girl can do to put one foot in front of the other and not run screaming with every noise the floorboards make underneath them.

Noah reaches the top and swings the flashlight around wildly. He roars loudly. "I'm the Puckasaurus," he screams suddenly.

Rachel gasps. "Noah!" she hisses. "What if someone's here? Now they're going to know where we are. I'm too young and talented to die."

They hear a loud creak suddenly, from somewhere downstairs. Santana and Rachel seem to realize at the same moment that they're most definitely upstairs and none of them are moving enough to make any noise. They look at each other quickly before turning back to Noah, whose eyes widen. "It's just the wind," he says.

Santana snatches the flashlight from him, shushing both of them. "Shut up," she whispers. "They're going to hear you."

She flips the switch on the flashlight, giving Rachel's hand a squeeze as she does so. Rachel holds Santana's fingers between her own as tight as she can possible manage. It's completely dark and they stand in silence for a few long moments. Santana is close to her and she can almost feel the other girl's heartbeat against the side of her body.

A loud CRACK! echoes through the house suddenly, coming from somewhere below them. Someone screams (it was her maybe) and Rachel feels her hand being tugged on. The flashlight comes back on and Santana pulls her downstairs, Noah close behind them. "Run!" she yells.

Santana reaches the front door, creaks and groans and cracks reaching their ears and settling firmly in their minds. Santana struggles with some of the boards. "Hurry up, hurry up, hurry up," Rachel mutters.

"I'm trying," Santana says. Noah reaches them and steps in front of her, moving the wooden slabs out of the way quickly. He doesn't wait for them to pass through, slipping through the gap with ease and taking off. Santana pushes Rachel through before she gets out of the house herself, grabbing Rachel's hand again as they rush after a yelling Noah.

The three of them sprint back to their bikes, running through the large yard as fast as they can. Rachel's breathing is labored, and she struggles to keep up with the other two kids. The wind whistles through the trees and Rachel has never hated being short more than she does right now. She trips over her dress, tumbling into the dirt and bringing Santana down with her. The taller girl doesn't leave her, though; she has Rachel back on her feet before she can apologize and practically drags her back towards the road.

There are only two bikes left by the time they get there and the sight of Noah's swinging dinosaur tail is all they see of the third bicycle as he rounds a bend in the street. "Do you think it followed us?" she gasps, trying to pull herself up on her own bike. She doesn't make it and drops to the ground, Santana falling beside her.

Santana shakes her head, putting her hand on her side. "Nah," she says breathlessly. "It would have caught us by now."

They sit there for a moment, in two girl-shaped heaps on the side of the road, their two stolen bikes beside them. They're both breathless, taking in huge gulps of air as they stare at each other.

"What do you think it was?" Rachel asks.

Santana shrugs. "Ghost maybe? Or a witch," she mutters. Rachel's eyes widen and Santana stands up. "Maybe we should start moving," she suggests. Rachel nods and lets the other girl help her up.

They decide not to ride the bikes (they're both still a bit winded) and opt to walk beside them instead. The night is heavy around them and Rachel can see the moon in the sky. It's a firm reminder that not only have they run off on Halloween again, but that it's getting later and with each passing second, the time of their punishments lengthen.

"Do you think Noah will get home?" she wonders after a while.

"Probably," Santana says. "He's a boy, remember?"

Rachel grins. Santana reaches into one of the bags still hanging on the bike handle, pulling out the first two pieces of candy she can find and giving one to Rachel. "Thanks for not leaving me," she states, thinking that anyone else probably would have left her without a moment's thought.

"Yeah, well, I'll get in bigger trouble if I lose you," Santana says. Rachel's face falls and the other girl leans over and nudges her. "And we're friends or whatever."

Rachel nods, the smile coming back to her face. "I hate being short," she sighs.

"You're like a hobbit," Santana teases, grinning at her. "You're fun-sized, like all our chocolate bars."

Rachel giggles. "Thanks, I think," she responds, the other girl's grin infectiously spreading on to her face until they're laughing at each other. "Do you think your mom will still let me sleep over?"

"I don't know," Santana tells her honestly. "I hope so," she says quietly after a long moment.

When they finally get back to Santana's house (they ditched the stolen bikes somewhere down the street), Mrs. Lopez is madder than Rachel has ever seen her and she's sure that she's going to be sent home immediately. The woman scolds Rachel for only a moment before sending her upstairs with the promise that she'll be talking to Rachel's dads at length in the morning. Relieved that she gets to stay, Rachel immediately runs up to the bathroom. She takes the time to clean the dirt off of her face and hands, changing into her pajamas.

For a good half hour, she hears nothing but yelling downstairs, most of it coming from Mrs. Lopez and screamed in a language that Rachel doesn't speak. She knows anger when she hears it, though. Sometimes, Santana yells back and the next noises Rachel hears are what a face to the hand or a body to a wall sound like.

When Santana finally comes up to her room, Rachel is sitting patiently on her bed. Santana sniffles, looking anywhere but at the girl waiting for her. She grabs some clothes to sleep in before running to the bathroom. Rachel spends the time she's gone doing something that she knows will cheer Santana up - dumping all their candy on the bed and sorting it into piles. She automatically puts everything with nuts into her pile and most of the caramels into Santana's, leaving the rest in the middle of the bed. It's a really good haul, the biggest one she's ever seen. Even the fact that half of it belonged to other kids doesn't deter her.

When Santana comes back into the room, she has on a pair of pants and a t-shirt. She's clean and Rachel can smell her soap from across the room. Santana grins at the sight of all the candy on the bed, jumping up and grabbing one of the caramels Rachel put on her side of the bed. She doesn't say anything about what happened downstairs, so Rachel doesn't, either, deciding that she'd much rather just keep talking about things Santana likes, just so she smiles.

Rachel is surprised that Mrs. Lopez didn't take their candy from them as soon as they walked in the door and when Santana says that they hide some away in case the woman remembers later, Rachel quickly agrees. Santana puts a good portion of her candy into a trinket box that she stuffs in the bottom drawer of her dresser. When she's not looking, Rachel hides a couple of chocolate bars and some lemonheads in Santana's favorite shoes, knowing the taller girl will find them later.

When they crawl into bed eventually, Rachel lays on Santana's side with her, pressed to her side like she always does. Their legs bump each other and their fingers brush. "I hate Maria," Santana whispers eventually. "Why can't it just be me and my dad again?"

"I don't know," Rachel says honestly.

"I wish I had a real mom."

Rachel thinks about her dads then, her kind fathers who pay for her singing and dancing lessons. She thinks about Hiram, with his busy administration job that means that he can never make it to her recitals. He always promises to make it to the next one, but he never does and Rachel's come to just expect that he won't be there. Rachel thinks about Leroy, about how he comes to her recitals, but never has time to read her a bedtime story anymore because he's always doing paperwork. He takes her to school and he makes dinner, but he does little else.

"Sometimes, I wish I had a mom, too," she mutters.

Santana hums. "I'll trade you my step-mom for one of your dads," she says.

"No, thanks," Rachel giggles, nudging the other girl until she giggles, too.

They spend the next hour making up their own bedtime stories together and Rachel falls asleep with the feel of Santana's lips on her cheek.

* * *

When Rachel is ten, they celebrate Halloween a bit differently. Santana's dad and step-mom have a baby in the summer, an adorable little girl named Camila. The two girls like to push her stroller around the Lopez home and take turns pretending to be her mother. They have fun treating her like a doll, occasionally getting to feed or change her. They have fun with Camila, but unfortunately, the presence of a newborn means that Rachel doesn't get to go to Santana's house very often anymore, and she definitely can't stay overnight.

Rachel's dads won't allow her to go trick-or-treating with Santana and Noah anymore, either, not anymore. So at Rachel's fierce insistence, Hiram and Leroy agree to let Santana spend Halloween day at the Berry household (something about being better able to keep a better eye on the pair that way.)

She invites Noah, but he'd rather go trick-or-treating and get candy than keep hanging out with girls. Rachel decides not to tell him that her dads have promised her that she and her friends could have whatever candy was left over after all the trick-or-treaters are done coming to their house (and then some, because she knows he's bought extra just for them.)

When Santana gets dropped off in the afternoon, Leroy makes small talk with Maria, asking about her husband and the new baby. The two girls impatiently leave them standing in the hallway, going to the kitchen so that Rachel can show Santana the pumpkins that she picked out for them to carve. She got the biggest ones she could find and they're so large that she can't even lift them on her own.

Santana stands in front of the pumpkins, inspecting them. She runs her finger over each one before poking Rachel, who's standing beside them. "Nope," she laughs. "Still a hobbit."

The shorter girl rolls her eyes and frowns. Santana jabs a finger against her side again and she jumps, squeaking. "Fun-size, remember?" she says, smiling and trying to poke Rachel again.

When Leroy finally comes into the kitchen, the girls are standing in front of the refrigerator, peering inside it. Santana's holding a tube of cookie dough, tearing off pieces to eat, handing some of them to Rachel and keeping some for herself. Leroy shakes his head and grins as he takes the cookie dough away from her. "Santana, your mother said that you promised to be on your best behavior today," he says.

" _Step_ -mother," she corrects. "And I didn't even do anything."

"Mm-hmm," he hums, unconvinced. Rachel giggles. "Raw cookie dough is bad for you, which is why you can only have a little bit at a time," he winks. "Just ask next time."

Rachel likes that her dad Leroy seems to get along with Santana. He's not like Hiram, who spends more time sighing and frowning at the pair of them than he does anything else. Whenever they get into trouble, Leroy usually just rolls his eyes and sets them straight. And he always does it with a smile.

"Can we carve our pumpkins now, daddy?" she asks politely. She shoots a glare at her friend when Santana pulls a face at her politeness.

"Yeah, just let me get some newspaper spread out on the coffee table. Why don't you go pick out which patterns you want to use?"

They nod and Rachel leads Santana to the living room. She turns on the television and sets it the kid's channel because it's showing all her favorite Halloween movies. _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ is just starting and she smiles brightly.

They spend the next thirty minutes arguing and discussing the merits of all the different patterns they find while Leroy sets out some newspaper and plastic bags on the coffee table. While they continue to debate and talk, he goes ahead and cuts the tops of their pumpkins off. He's about to start cleaning them out himself when they announce that they've come to an agreement.

Rachel has chosen a grinning cat, only after she promises Santana that she can have the bigger pumpkin. The other brunette goes with a ghost rising out of the ground beside a grave. Leroy tells them that he'll do whatever pattern they want him to, and they hand him the hardest one they can find in the pattern book - a headless horseman holding up a smiling pumpkin head.

It takes them much longer to clean out their pumpkins than it should, mostly because Santana keeps grabbing handfuls of squishy pumpkin innards and dumping them into Rachel's pumpkin every time she manages to get a little more out. The smaller brunette retaliates by flinging pumpkin seeds at Santana until Leroy makes her stop because she's getting them all over the carpet. Santana smears sticky pumpkin strings up both of their arms and laughs hysterically when Rachel picks them off and pouts.

By the time they finally get started on the actual carving, _The Nightmare Before Christmas_ is almost over and Leroy is almost done with his pumpkin. Rachel is slow and meticulous, eager for her cat to turn out perfect. Santana is impatient, muttering under her breath until Leroy tells her that he can speak Spanish and he knows what she's saying. She keeps bending their saws as she cuts and at one point, she stops and crosses her arms, glaring at her pumpkin like she wants it to cut itself.

 _Hocus Pocus_ starts playing and Santana turns her attention to that for a few minutes, just because she's so angry at pumpkins and stupid little orange-handled saws that break easily. "Santana, stop watching the movie and finish your pumpkin," Rachel says.

"No," Santana answers. "It's stupid. _You_ finish."

"I did finish," Rachel tells her, turning her pumpkin around to show the other girl. "How's it look?"

Her curves are uneven and sometimes Rachel takes off a little more than she means to. One side of the cat's mouth dips down a good amount lower than the other side and there are a couple of pumpkin pieces still stuck inside some of the smaller segments. They've both seen better pumpkins and they know it. "It looks good," Santana says instead of the truth. "Better than mine," she adds, which is definitely the truth.

Santana's ghost only has one eye and her grave, which should be rounded at the top, is square. She's broken two saws and only about half of her pumpkin is done. "Do you want me to help you?" Rachel asks. Santana shrugs, which Rachel knows means 'yes,' and hands Rachel a fresh saw.

Leroy finishes his headless horseman and it's a perfect specimen. He shows it off to the girls, who are both a little in awe, and then leaves the room to clean up and find some candles. Rachel walks across the floor on her knees and settles next to Santana. She grabs her pumpkin and slowly starts going over some of Santana's messed up curves and lines. Santana watches her closely, sliding over until their knees are bumping and their hips touch. "See? You just have to go slow," Rachel says.

Rachel's work is only a little better than Santana's, but she doesn't break anything and she actually finishes, which is more than the taller girl can say. They sing along to the big song performance of the movie while she carves, giggling and trying to do their best Bette Midler impressions. Halfway through the song, and almost completely through the pumpkin carving, Santana leans over and drops a kiss to Rachel's cheek. Rachel just smiles and keeps cutting.

Leroy helps them put their pumpkins on the porch and light them with vanilla candles that make the entire house smell good, like pumpkin pie with a scoop of whipped topping. He orders them pizza on the condition that they don't tell Hiram and lets them eat upstairs in Rachel's room. Leroy passes them one of two full bowls of candy and tells them to eat their pizza first and he'll check on them later.

Rachel carries their plates of pizza and Santana follows her with the candy bowl, two cans of soda tucked into her jean pockets. When they reach Rachel's room, they decide to settle on the floor. Santana turns the television on, turning it to an adult channel that the smaller girl has never watched. She turns the volume up just in time for a masked man to come into the scene wielding a large knife.

"Santana, I don't want to watch a scary movie," Rachel exclaims, wincing at the sight of the man on her t.v. She covers up her eyes. "Change the channel."

"But it's Halloween," Santana says. "You're supposed to watch scary movies."

"No, you're supposed to watch _Halloween_ movies. They don't have to be scary," Rachel responds, suddenly captivated by the sight of the man with the knife chasing the woman. She falls and he's upon her instantly, thrusting the knife into her stomach. Blood spurts across his mask and Rachel gasps, shuffling closer to Santana. "I don't want to watch this anymore," she frowns.

Santana nods absently, as entranced and unable to look away as she is. "Yeah, okay," she says, grabbing the remote and flipping back to something more kid-friendly.

They sift through the candy while they eat their pizza, picking out pieces and eating them in between bites of pepperoni and cheese. Rachel can hear the sound of trick-or-treaters outside, other kids running around in costumes and collecting their own treats. Santana drops her pizza crusts on to Rachel's plate because she knows that the other girl will eat them. She finds some taffy in the bowl, making quick work of it.

"You could have gone trick-or-treating with Noah," Rachel says. "I know you like to scare people and steal their things."

Santana picks a pepperoni off of one of Rachel's pizza slices and tosses it in her mouth. "Noah sucks now," she responds. "This is more fun anyway." Rachel smiles at her and Santana smirks in return. "Plus, I can't get in trouble here and Maria can't yell at me."

It's a lie, though, because they both know that Maria Lopez will always find a way to yell at Santana. Rachel takes it at face-value, though, because at least Santana gets one evening where she won't have to worry about that.

The two watch television idly as they finish eating. Leroy comes in shortly after and takes their plates from him. "Maria called, Santana," he starts, prompting the girls to stand up in anticipation. Rachel frowns, unhappy that her friend has to leave so soon. "I told her that you've been well-behaved and we'd be happy to have you stay the night."

"Really?" He nods and Santana gives him a quick hug. "Thanks, Mr. Berry. You're seriously the best."

Leroy laughs down at them kindly. "This is why I keep you around," he says. "You know how to flatter a guy."

"Mr. Berry, do you have any balloons?" Santana asks suddenly. Rachel looks at her in confusion and Leroy narrows his eyes.

"Why?"

She shrugs. "Just wondering."

He considers her for a moment, and she stares up at him with a blank expression. "Absolutely not," he says eventually. "You're not throwing water balloons at the kids in the street."

Rachel giggles and Santana can't help but grin. "It was just an idea."

The sound of the doorbell ringing interrupts them and Rachel hears Leroy laughing as he walks down the stairs. "And I was just calling that girl well-behaved."

"What do you wanna do now?" Rachel asks after her father is gone.

Santana thinks for a minute before her face lights up. "I know! We should play Bloody Mary," she says excitedly.

Rachel's face contorts into a frown, her brows furrowing and the corners of her mouth falling. Rachel heard about Bloody Mary from some kids at school and she knows that she definitely doesn't want to do anything to summon a horrible witch from the other side of the mirror.

Santana rolls her eyes when Rachel doesn't seem to share her excitement. "Come on, Rachel," she says. "It's just a stupid game. Nothing's gonna happen."

"Then why do we have to play it at all?"

"Just for fun?" Santana tries. "It's not like we have anything better to do."

It is only with great reluctance and the promise that they won't do or watch anything else scary for the rest of the night that Rachel follows Santana into the bathroom. Rachel stares at their reflections in the mirror, her nerves dancing inside her stomach. The bathroom's nightlight is dim and the girls she sees in the mirror are barely-there in the low light.

Santana takes her hand. "Bloody Mary," she says. Rachel just stares at herself in the mirror until her friend nudges her. "You have to say it, too."

"Bloody Mary," they say together, their voices low. Rachel swears that the nightlight flickers and she bites her lip. "I don't want to," she mutters. She bounces on the heels of her feet. "I don't want to do this."

She can see it already in her mind, a terrifying old woman, pale with dark sunken eyes and blackened teeth, grinning as she flies through the mirror towards them. She kills them maybe, or she drags them through the mirror into her world, or she cuts their faces open with a rusty knife and lets them bleed out all over the floor.

"Bloody Mary!" Santana says just as the nightlight flickers and dies.

Rachel shrieks, swearing that she sees a face she doesn't know in the mirror. She grabs the door handle, crying out as she runs all the way downstairs with Santana hot on her heels, the other girl grumbling in broken panicked Spanish all the way.

"Dad!" she yells out as they reach the bottom floor. He's standing at the door, dropping candy into the bucket of a trick-or-treater. Leroy eyes them curiously as they pant on the bottom step. "What's wrong?" he asks.

"We saw Bloody Mary," she replies quickly. She briefly notes that the trick-or-treater is a girl who goes to her school, the very tall Brittany Pierce. She's dressed a cat, black ears sticking up off the top of her head and a matching tail hanging down behind her.

"That's just a ghost story. It's not real," he says kindly, sending Brittany on her way.

Rachel looks at the girl next to her, who is staring at the empty space where Brittany was standing. "Santana?"

Santana shakes her head, looking down at where her hand is still holding Rachel's. She frowns, but she doesn't let go. "But the light went out," she says. "And I totally saw a face."

"The bulb probably just blew out," Leroy explains, smiling at them.

When Rachel tells Santana that they've only spooked themselves, Santana agrees with her because things like Bloody Mary just can't be real. Nevertheless, they decide to spend the rest of the night downstairs in the living room, huddled on the couch together under a collection of blankets Leroy brings them.

The trick-or-treaters thin out eventually and Leroy helps Santana and Rachel make a palette on the floor with some pillows and blankets. They go to sleep still holding hands and with the lamp in the corner on, just in case.

* * *

Hiram comes home late that night, long past the time all of the children in town have returned to their homes. Rachel wakes up when she hears him come in and she scoots closer to the girl lying next to her.

"What is she still doing here?" she hears Hiram ask of Leroy somewhere behind them in the hallway.

"I called Maria and offered to keep her for the night," Leroy answers.

"Leroy, you know how I feel about this," her daddy says. "She's a bad influence on Rachel."

"She's not a bad kid," her other dad responds. "She's just going through some things at home. Maria said she's already been suspended twice this year for fighting. Where does she think the kid gets it from?"

Rachel can practically see the lines of stress across Hiram's face. "And none of that is our business."

"Rachel's a good influence on her," Leroy says. "All they did was watch some movies, eat some candy, and spend the rest of the night scared on the couch because they played that old Bloody Mary game. Oh, she's such a wild child."

"Leroy," Hiram sighs.

"I know," she hears Leroy say before the two men walk upstairs.

Rachel feels Santana squeeze her hand and knows that the other girl is awake and has heard everything her dads said. "I can't wait for us to go to middle school together," she whispers. "It's going to be amazing."

And she honestly believes that it will be.

Santana nods. "Me, too" she says, smiling at the other girl.

Rachel lays her head on Santana's shoulder, deciding that her tenth Halloween is the best one yet.

* * *

When Rachel stars middle school, nothing goes to plan. It takes about half an hour before Rachel's elementary school social status catches up to her and the teasing starts all over again. It takes about two hours for Santana to realize that Rachel isn't popular, at all. Tem minutes after that, Rachel finds out that her friend has some secret obsession with popularity and being in charge. By the end of the day, Santana isn't talking to her and she isn't exactly sure what went wrong.

Rachel spends all night crying into Leroy's shoulder while Hiram sits next to them, the words "I told you so" being spoken mainly to his husband, but reaching both of them. When she calls Santana's house later, the other girl is quiet but apologetic.

"You're my best friend," Rachel says.

"I'm sorry," Santana responds immediately, her voice soft.

"Why?"

Santana says nothing for a while and Rachel wonders if she hung up. "I have to do this, Rach," she whispers. "It's - I just have to."

"What about me?"

"You're my best friend," Santana says, hanging up the phone.

By the end of their first month of middle school, Santana stops sending lingering looks her way and Rachel stops expecting them to be friends again. Santana spends all her time with Brittany Pierce and Rachel quietly watches them become more and more attached at the hip. She throws herself into music like never before.

Rachel tells her dads that she doesn't want to celebrate on October 31st; she's too old for costumes and trick-or-treating. She spends Halloween singing sad songs in her room instead, unable to find any joy on the normally fun holiday.

The next day, her dads talk about complaining neighbors and soundproofing rooms. Rachel finds a bag of candy on her windowsill with a note taped to it.

" _We'll always have Halloween."_

* * *

By the time her next Halloween rolls around, Rachel has long since given up on Santana altogether. She sees the other girl at school often, but she's usually with Brittany. The two have joined the middle school cheerleading squad and Rachel tries not to stare too hard at the two girls together during pep rallies and school assemblies. She doesn't have any friends like that, has no real friends at all, so she fights loneliness by dedicating herself to singing, dancing, and acting lessons.

She spends Halloween day upstairs in her room again. Her dad buys her a pumpkin, but she doesn't carve it, letting it sit on the table downstairs faceless and untouched. Rachel listens to the children out in the street trick-or-treating until she starts to feel crazy and needs to do something.

At night, she puts the television on the adult channel and watches the "horror classics" because she's twelve and she's not a child anymore. Eventually, that makes her feel crazy, too. Somewhere between another zombie apocalypse and yet another masked madman, Rachel asks to sleep in her dad's room for the night.

Lying between her fathers, Rachel brings the blanket up underneath her chin and tries to stop herself from imagining Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees creeping into the bedroom. She also tries not to think that Freddy Krueger is waiting for her in her dreams and she's doomed no matter what.

 _She's wrong,_ Rachel thinks suddenly, _Halloween isn't ours anymore._

The next day, there's a mask in her locker. It's small, too small for her to wear, and its face is that of an evilly grinning pumpkin. There's no note, but Rachel doesn't need one. She throws it away, making a big show of slamming it into the trashcan near the lockers where Brittany and Santana are standing.

* * *

When she's thirteen, Rachel gets invited to a Halloween party that one of the girls in her dance class is throwing. It's a forced invitation prompted by the girl's mother, who insists that everyone the girl knows is welcome to come to their home for candy, games, and "spooky surprises."

Hiram tries to make her go, even goes so far as to buy her a costume, but she refuses. She locks herself in her room, ignoring the shouts that he's going to break her door down this instant if she doesn't open up. Rachel waits him out, because eventually, he has to go to work. When he finally leaves, she allows herself to cry. Because of course Hiram has to go to work. It's all he ever does.

When Leroy comes up and asks her if she's sure that she doesn't want to go to the party, Rachel cracks the door open and sighs.

"I can't."

He smiles sadly. "I understand, baby," he says.

Rachel goes to bed early that Halloween, tear tracks stained down her face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, things like neighborhoods and certain Halloween festivities in other towns that get mentioned are all made-up. The only spoilers for season three come for the first three episodes that have already aired; everything else is pure conjecture and only what I would like to see happen.

Rachel is sure that if last Halloween was horrible, the one her freshman year of high school is going to go down on record as the worst one ever (she decides this weeks in advance.)

Santana and Brittany have managed to segue their middle school cheerleading into high school cheerleading as the second-in-commands to the pretty blonde Quinn Fabray. No one knows Quinn when she shows up on the first day of school, her head held high and her hair up in a ponytail, but by end of the first week of school, _everyone_  knows at least her name. The popular freshman climbs the social ladder at once, taking to it like it was meant for her.

Rachel gets pushed to the bottom of the ladder immediately. She joins the glee club because it's a chance for her to put her talent to good use, even if Mr. Ryerson is a little creepy and inappropriate. The kids are okay, too, other outcasts like her who bond over their inferior status.

She tries not to let the way people treat her bother her anymore, setting her goals a little bit bigger and longer-term than Lima, Ohio. She sets her sights on Broadway and even though she's technically not there yet, she already doesn't look back (except for one afternoon where Santana Lopez is the one to slushie her, but well, that Big Gulp hit her a bit harder and deeper than just the face.)

Halloween is a big affair among McKinley's student population, or so she's told. Tina, Kurt, and Mercedes tell her about a huge house party they heard about, one that everyone will be attending, jocks and geeks alike. Social status means less in the presence of alcohol, apparently.

Rachel doesn't initially want to go, but they manage to convince her. She opts to not wear a costume, because she knows that most of the teenagers there won't be wearing them, unless some of the girls are wearing skimpy little numbers that barely cover anything. Rachel's not really comfortable in that, so she just wears her normal clothes.

She walks to the house party with Tina, who doesn't say much. Rachel, normally very verbose, is satisfied making the short journey in silence. Halloween was one of her favorite holidays growing up, but it's lost a lot of its meaning for her.

It doesn't help her mood that the first person she sees when they walk into the house is Santana. She's gone the slutty costume route, wearing a pink and white striped nurse's outfit that just barely covers her thighs and dips low enough to show off a sufficient amount of cleavage. She's leaning against a wall, giggling at Noah.

Noah goes by "Puck" now and he has a mohawk. He's a football player on the junior squad and he tells anyone who will listen that he'll be a starter on the varsity team by the time he's a sophomore. And it looks like he's telling that to Santana now, grinning down at her and quirking an eyebrow. Puck, that ridiculous little dinosaur-boy Rachel grew up going to Temple with, is a jerk now, a veritable man-whore two months into his high school career.

From what she hears about Santana Lopez, the tall girl isn't far behind Puck in building up a reputation for promiscuity. And Rachel Berry? She's just the loud know-it-all that Quinn Fabray tells them to slushie at least once a week.

Santana catches her eye all of the sudden, giving her a strange look. Rachel stares at her with something akin to hurt until Santana turns away, grabbing Puck's arm and pulling him away. They two wander through a sea of sweaty bodies until they're out of sight and Rachel thinks about how sad it is that they all used to be friends.

Tina drags her through the hallway towards the back of the house, shouting something about Kurt and Mercedes outside. People press against them on all sides, dancing and swaying and swaggering around drunkenly. Music is blaring out of speakers in the living room, something unrecognizable but with a deep bass and pounding drums. Thankfully, no one seems to pay Rachel and Tina any mind at all.

When they step out the back door on to the patio, a burst of cool air shocks them and Rachel realizes how much cooler it is outside than inside. Other teenagers are spread out through the yard: Quinn Fabray and Finn Hudson are sitting on a bench out near the back fence; Brittany Pierce, dressed as a playful cat in minimal clothing, dances with a boy Rachel recognizes as Mike Chang; upperclassmen whose names Rachel doesn't know are separated mostly into pairs, kissing and groping each other blindly. They spy Kurt and Mercedes sitting in a couple of chairs and make their way over to them, sitting down at a small table littered with beer cans.

"Happy Halloween!" Kurt greets them, yelling a bit over the loud music that still blares out into the yard. Rachel wonders how this house gets away with such a blatant noise violation while she gets complaints for singing in her room.

"This party is crazy," Mercedes says. "I saw Robert Thomas and Charlotte Jacks go upstairs like, twenty minutes ago. And there are a bunch of girls from the celibacy club who are acting anything but celibate."

Tina nods. "I saw Jacob Ben-Israel," she stutters. They all understand her message, though. If Jacob can stay at this party unscathed, then they should be able to as well.

Kurt eyes Rachel's outfit, just another of her typical skirt and sweater combos. "So, you're being quiet tonight, Rachel," he observes.

Rachel grimaces, moving some of the beer bottles on the table away from her. "I guess I'm just not very fond of Halloween and I fail to see the fun in surrounding myself with drunken idiots and sexually promiscuous teenagers."

"Girl, we're freshman, so you better get used to it," Mercedes laughs.

"Yes, unfortunately, we've still got four more years with these neanderthals and their women," Kurt adds, fixing a pointed look at some senior football player practically dry-humping a girl against a wooden fence.

"L-let's make the best of it," Tina says. "Do you guys want to dance?"

The foursome head back into the house, Rachel casting one last look out over the yard on her way in. She spots Quinn glaring at her and rushes after her friends, eager to get away from the watchful gaze of the cheerleader. If it's even possible, there are more people at the party now, and Rachel only barely manages to keep up with her friends. Eventually, they're able to find an area for themselves in the den.

Santana's there again, in her line of vision as she dances. She's with Brittany, throwing back shots and surrounded by guys. Santana and Brittany grin at each other and then Brittany leans over and kisses the brunette, the lips pressing together with force. The boys cheer and the two cheerleaders share a few more kisses. When they pull away, they smile and Rachel sees something else pass over Santana's face quickly, something she can't quite identify but which looks like it might be serious. But then Santana's gone again, fleeing the room with Puck's hand on her back. She stumbles for a second and the boy laughs at her, guiding her out of the den. They don't come back.

Rachel doesn't drink (none of her friends do) and she dances for a bit before she grows bored. She can't find it within herself to have any fun on Halloween. It's tainted by the ghosts of too many childhood memories. They wash over her before she can stop them and she frowns. The room feels fuller of a sudden and Rachel retreats back to the patio again in search of the chance to breathe again.

No one else is outside, for which Rachel is very grateful. She's able to sit in solitude for several minutes before someone drops on to the deck next to her heavily. When she glances over, Santana is sitting there. Her hair is disheveled and Santana's half-heatedly trying to smooth it down. Her lip gloss is mostly gone, but a bit of it has smeared on to her cheek. Rachel looks away and says nothing. Santana wipes at her lip with her thumb.

Rachel can't sit next to the girl for very long without feeling nauseous, sadness building up inside of her and making her feel sick. She stands up. "Happy Halloween, Santana," she says quietly.

Santana scoffs, digging the toe of her heels into the ground. "If you say so, Berry," Santana responds, her voice slightly softer than Rachel expects it to be.

"What? No Manhands this time?" Rachel asks, crossing her arms. She knows that she should just walk away but there are so many things inside her trying to burst their way out of her chest, so many things that she's wanted to say to Santana Lopez for so long, that she can't leave. Not without  _something_.

"Obviously not, since I said 'Berry,' didn't I?" Santana shoots back, none of the usual malice in her voice. She fixes to top of her nurse outfit and smoothes out the skirt, pressing its ruffles down against her legs.

"I have to say, this costume is very different from your normal attire," Rachel says, sitting back down on the patio.

"Shit, I haven't worn a good costume in like, years," Santana frowns. Her eyes start to water and her face contorts.

Rachel can smell the alcohol rolling off the girl in thick waves. It's mixed with the scent of cologne and as Rachel tries not to inhale too deeply, Santana starts to cry, sobs earnestly and suddenly. "You're drunk," she sighs.

"He's such an asshole," Santana cries. "I let him get to second base and ten minutes later, he's all over that Jasmine bitch. And she has big tits and she's so pretty and nice and she has a car. It's so stupid."

Rachel doesn't know what to say to Santana's rant, doesn't even know why the other girl is telling her any of this, so she looks around quickly. Sitting this close to the other girl feels like playing with fire and Santana has a tendency to burn her these days.

Santana's still sobbing, muttering until she slips into Spanish because she can't help it. At one point, she looks over at Rachel with big brown eyes full of tears and says something Rachel doesn't understand. But the look on her face is unbearably heartbroken and it reminds Rachel of how she used to look when she was a little girl, lying in her bed crying because of something her step-brother did to her, and Rachel has to stand up because she really is about to be set ablaze.

Something like nostalgia washes over her and she sighs at herself as she leans down to help Santana stand up. The girl wavers a little, stumbling over her own feet as she rises, and Rachel has to wrap an arm around her waist to keep her upright.

"Let's get you home," she says quietly.

"No," Santana whimpers, still crying. "I can't go home like this. Maria -" she stops, her lip shaking.

"Where's Brittany?" Rachel asks, because if Santana is anyone's problem now, she's Brittany Pierce's.

"I don't know," the other girl answers, her tears increasing. Rachel peers back into the house, seeing only people she doesn't know. She doesn't spot any tall leggy blondes.

"I - I guess you can stay at my house tonight," she eventually settles on. She's too nice and too kind and she hates herself for it.

Santana says nothing, but her sobs start to decrease and she takes a few shuddering breathes to calm herself. She nods.

They walk to the back gate, stepping out on to the sidewalk and heading down the street towards Rachel's home. Their progress is ridiculously slow, so unlike the way they used to walk the streets of Lima as energetic children. Santana trips over herself more than once, teetering precariously on her heels, and Rachel has to keep a steadying arm around her at all times. She gets distracted a couple of times, bursting into sudden drunken tears along the way.

"I'm going to regret this," Rachel says as they finally make it to her front porch.

"No," Santana shakes her head adamantly. She sounds like her throat is dry and raw, and its normal raspiness is deeper. Her voice cracks a little saying just one word. The taller girl thinks about it for a second and then shrugs. "Maybe."

"Probably," Rachel mutters, sliding her key into the front door.

Leroy is there in the hallway as she enters, helping Santana into the entranceway. He quirks an eyebrow at them but doesn't say anything as he closes the door behind the two girls. When he opens his mouth, Rachel raises a hand. "I know," she tells him, deciding that she doesn't need her dad to remind her that this is probably a very bad idea.

"Mr. Berry," Santana slurs, "you were always my favorite. You're just so cool and awesome."

He shakes his head and sends Rachel another look before he goes upstairs, leaving the smaller of the two girls to help the other up to the bedroom. Rachel knows that Leroy's look is the one that means "we'll talk about this in the morning" and she dreads that discussion already. She knows every question he's going to have and she doesn't really have the answers.

She sends Santana to the bathroom with a change of clothes and tells her to clean herself up. Rachel undresses quickly and slips into a clean pair of pajamas before sitting at her desk to wait for the other girl to come in. After a few minutes, Santana stumbles in wearing a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. The sight and the feeling of the moment takes Rachel back and she has to shake her head to clear the sense of déjà vu from her mind.

Santana's washed the makeup off her face and her eyes are rimmed red. She stands there awkwardly for a moment, and Rachel gestures to the bed, just so that they skip this strange moment where they're supposed to talk or something.

They crawl into bed on opposite sides, the same way they always used to. They're both taller now and they take up more space than they used to. Rachel has to resist the urge to move closer to Santana, just out of habit. No words are spoken as they lie down with their backs to one another.

There are questions burning on the tip of Rachel's tongue. She wants to ask about Camila, who's four now and likely the cutest toddler in the world. Rachel wants to ask about Noah, about what Santana is doing with him. She wants to know about Brittany, about the long lingering looks she sees between the two that look like more than friendship. She wants to ask about Maria and Diego and if Santana still can't stand to be at home with them. Rachel wants the most to ask about Santana, about  _her_  and Santana and what they've become - the slutty cheerleader and the Broadway-obsessed outcast. She bites her tongue instead, waiting until the pain is big enough to distract her.

"Thanks," Rachel hears eventually. There's movement in the bed and Santana leans over her and lays a sloppy kiss to her temple. Rachel says nothing in return and shows no sign of reaction. She's long since given up on this side of her and Santana, and she knows that nothing will change.

In the morning when she wakes, the other side of the bed is as cold and empty and she expected it to be. Rachel sighs, checking her phone and responding to some text messages from Kurt, Mercedes, and Tina about where she disappeared to during the party.

When she sits up, Rachel almost jumps out of her skin.

On her desk sits a pumpkin, one that Hiram bought her but she never touched. It's been carved into a picture – a cat that smiles cutely as it sits next to a tombstone. Rachel smiles a little bit despite herself, because even though she and Santana aren't friends anymore and she hates everything that Santana has turned into, sometimes the other girl still surprises her.

There's just something about Halloween, she thinks, something about the two of them on October 31st.

At school, nothing changes. Quinn comes up with a new nickname for her - Treasure Trail - and Santana glares at her with the same intensity that she always does.

* * *

Rachel's sophomore turn takes a dramatic turn. She gets Sandy Ryerson fired because he's creepy and he gives away her solos to other people. Mister Schuester takes over the glee club and Finn Hudson joins them, which means that she finally has a leading man to sing opposite her.

Unfortunately, Finn's inclusion in the club prompts the arrivals of Quinn, Brittany, and Santana. Mister Schuester lets them in with ease, which is ridiculous as far as she's concerned, because nothing good can come from allowing Sue Sylvester's three biggest minions to be in the glee club. It has sabotage written all over it.

By Halloween, everyone in the school knows that Quinn is pregnant and the blonde gets kicked off the Cheerios. Finn and the glee club rally around her because it's the right thing to do and Rachel hopes that falling from grace will humanize Quinn Fabray a little bit.

Rachel dates Noah briefly, but it doesn't last long because they both know they're better as friends. Not to mention the fact that they both have feelings for other people.

A few kids wear costumes to school, but there are rules against such celebratory gestures and they all end the day wearing spare gym clothes from the lost-and-found. Tina ends up among them because Principal Figgins doesn't understand that her goth look isn't a costume, but just how she dresses.

There's a party planned for the evening, but Rachel has no plans to attend. She's had enough of the popular kids she sees every day in glee. Besides, she knows how it will go. Girls will wear outfits that show more skin than they cover, costumes like "sexy kitten" and "sexy pirate" and "sexy vampire." The boys will show up in their letterman jackets, or just regular jeans and shirts, and disappear at some point to throw eggs at houses and fling toilet paper across stranger's yards.

Rachel decides to stay home and relax, to escape from all the drama that high school keeps throwing at her. She could use a nice normal evening away from people like Quinn Fabray and Noah Puckerman.

Leroy is on trick-or-treater duty, because that's always his Halloween job. He and Rachel carved pumpkins a few days ago to set out for the occasion and they strung some orange lights across their front porch. For her part, Rachel's fine with watching  _Funny Girl_  in the living room and listening to the sounds of small children scream outside.

"Rachel? You have some visitors," Leroy announces around eight.

"Who is it?" she asks, because she's not expecting anyone (people rarely go out of their way to visit her.)

"See for yourself," he says, walking back outside as two figures wander through the hallway and stand in front of her.

Rachel sees a little girl, probably around four or five, holding the hand of someone tall and slender, hiding their face beneath a mask. The little girl has pretty brown eyes and long wavy hair and Rachel doesn't need to know who's under the scarecrow mask to know that it's Santana Lopez. Camila looks just like a miniature version of the teenage cheerleader, complete with replica red and white uniform. The only different is that she smiles a little bigger and with more sincerity than Santana did when she was younger, like she's really happy in ways the older Lopez could never have been at that age.

"What are you doing here?"

Santana raises up her mask. "What are you doing tonight, Berry?"

"Nothing in particular," she answers, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," Santana says, nodding. "You're coming trick-or-treating with me and Camila, and we're not taking no for an answer."

The little girl nods enthusiastically.

Rachel stutters because honestly, this wasn't anything like what she was expecting. "I'm sorry? You're asking  _me_  to come with you?"

Santana motions for Camila to stay where she is and strides over to Rachel easily. "Look, we're not friends or whatever," she starts. "But shit, Halloween was our day, alright?"

She's right and Rachel knows it. She knows that some of their best childhood times were spent in each other's company on October 31st. It was  _their_  day. But Santana's also right that they're not friends anymore and Rachel doesn't know if she wants to put herself in what might be a bad situation. It's a sad but necessary thought to wonder if this could all be some kind of set-up.

Santana sees her hesitation. "Look, we're not going to be friends. Everything won't magically be sunshine-and-rainbows tomorrow," she starts. "But Halloween parties suck and fuck, Berry. All my best Halloweens were with you, okay? There, I said it."

The taller girl looks like she'd rather have six teeth pulled than admit something like that, but she looks honest. Rachel eyes Camila standing impatiently in the hallway, bouncing up and down, and she looks like  _she_  would rather have six teeth pulled than wait any longer. Rachel wonders if Santana would bring a five-year-old into a plot to humiliate a classmate. The answer is a definite maybe.

"Camila, come here for a second," Santana says, her voice taking on a soft tone Rachel's not used to hearing from her anymore. The small girl walks over to them and takes her sister's offered hand, humming a bit.

"Santí, I wanna get candy now," she announces loudly. She wrings the handle of her bright orange pumpkin between her fingers. "Can we go?" she asks, directing the question at Rachel. Her eyes are wide and curious and Rachel thinks it's not fair that Santana has brought in this adorable child to tempt her.

"We're just waiting for Rachel, Cammie," Santana responds, looking down at her sister. "She doesn't want to go with us."

"Why not?" Camila wonders. "We's awesome."

"We  _are_  awesome," Rachel immediately corrects.

"S'what I said," Camila says.

"Look, I fucking love Halloween," Santana rolls her eyes. "It's just for one night. You can go back to hating me tomorrow."

"I'm sure you'll go back to hating me much faster than I will you," Rachel sighs. "We were best friends, Santana. I don't see how you expect -"

"Exactly," the other girl says. "We were best friends. And we're in glee together now."

"Yes, and you constantly attempt to sabotage one of the only sources of happiness in my life  _after_  you ruined my favorite holiday," Rachel shoots back, her voice rising.

"Only a little bit!" Santana cries, dropping her sister's hand. "We barely do anything to hurt the glee club. Seriously, I haven't done anything against that stupid club in weeks."

Rachel's eyes narrow. "Be that as it may, I'm sure that I can expect you to hatch some evil plan against us next week."

They both cross their arms, staring at each other. "If you tell anyone this, I'll say you made it up," she starts, her face softening slightly. "I like the glee club. It's totally lame, but it's kinda fun. You know I always liked singing and stuff."

Camila nods, looking back and forth between the two girls. "That's true," she says. "Santí said it's her favorite thing."

When Rachel looks back at Santana to gauge her reaction, the other girl's gaze is fixed somewhere away from her. She shrugs, and Rachel knows that means it's true, because that was always Santana's way of admitting things she didn't want to.

The five-year-old holds up her hand, waving it around in a childlike imitation of her older sister. "I can fix this," she says with great authority, grabbing one of Rachel's outstretched hands. "Rachel, you can be Santí's Halloween friend," she announces, putting Rachel's hand in Santana's. "There. I fixed you."

Rachel just stands there in shock when Santana doesn't immediately drop her hand. "It's just one night. And I promise on Puck's old dinosaur costume that it stays between us," she smirks. " _We'll always have Halloween_ , remember?"

Santana looks earnest, more open and honest than Rachel's seen her look in years. There's a pit of longing in the bottom of her stomach, tucked away and ignored for years, and it pangs when Santana looks at her like that. It twitches low in her belly and wants more than anything to have something with Santana Lopez, something like what they had as kids. There were best friends once, and that hollow aching part of Rachel thinks that maybe she can live with having that again for one night. And if it turns out to be something evil and nefarious, then at least she'll have some moments to hold on to, like standing in her living room with Santana's warm hand wrapped around hers and her brown eyes looking at Rachel with the same sweetness that they used to.

"Stop doing googley eyes," Camila whines. "I wanna go get candy."

"I don't have a costume," Rachel sighs, shaking her head to look away from Santana and back down at the little girl in front of her.

Camila beams and reaches into her hollow pumpkin. "I got you a  _tara_  so you can be a princess," she says, holding out a plastic tiara towards Rachel.

"And if you don't wanna do that, I brought you a ghostface mask," Santana laughs.

The little girl pulls Rachel's hand out of her sister's grip, holding on to it and walking them towards the door. "No, I know," she grins. "Rach can wear both of them and be a princess ghostface."

* * *

Santana has a car with her, which surprises Rachel because they're not sixteen yet. "I have my permit," she explains. "And my dad said it's okay as long as I don't wreck it."

It's the same car that Santana's step-brother Diego used to drive, and a wave of nostalgia breaks through Rachel. "I'm surprised that you even get in this car," she says. Bad things used to happen when Santana and Diego were in the same place, family cars included. Rachel wonders if there's still a blood stain on the carpet in the back seat, but she doesn't turn around to check.

"They're going to get me a new car for my sixteenth," Santana says, catching her eye. She knows what Rachel is thinking about, and she shakes her head at the silent question in the shorter girl's eyes. "It's no big deal."

"Where's Diego?" she wonders aloud.

Camila makes a disgusted noise in the backseat. "He left."

When Rachel glances at Santana, she nods. "He moved out when he graduated. We haven't seen him since," she mutters.

"Good," Rachel says honestly. Santana smiles a little bit, pulling away from the curb and agreeing with her.

She drives for a solid half hour and complains every time Rachel makes her slow down when her speed edges over the limit. She turns on the radio, finding a Top 40 station that plays some songs Camila has heard. The little girl demands that they all sing together, and after about three songs, they're all shouting lyrics at the top of their lungs. Rachel is torn somewhere between bliss and heartbreak because it's a little too much like what they used to do and she knows that this is a one-time thing (she can see how adamant Santana is that it remain a Halloween-only occurrence.)

Eventually, Santana stops the car, pulling over and parking. Rachel knows the neighborhood they're in, a middle-class area on the opposite end of town from McKinley and its student body. As they get out, Rachel tries to decide if their location is a good or bad thing; on the one hand, Santana's obviously thought ahead enough to take them somewhere they won't run into anyone, so they can just enjoy the night together with Camila, but on the other hand, she feels like Santana's dirty little October secret.

Rachel bends over upon request and lets Camila put the shiny little plastic tiara on top of her head. Santana holds out a bag to Rachel and she decides to give the Lopez sisters one thing - they're definitely prepared. "So I googled it, and I found a list of candy that's vegan. I figure we can just give whatever you can't eat to Camila," Santana informs her, grinning.

Halloween Santana is different from the Santana that she's grown so used to and she just nods in response because the whole night is a little overwhelming. What she is used to is Santana smirking and slipping her scarecrow mask over her face. She gestures for Rachel and Camila to stand aside and she leans against a fence, unmoving. She's chosen a spot between two streetlights, where there's just a hint of some darkness, and Rachel realizes what she's about to do. A group of kids pass by and Santana jumps, screaming at them and grabbing their candy as they flee.

Santana hands one of the bags to her sister. "Here you go, kid," she laughs. "Go hard."

The little girl beams, but the sudden added weight makes her sway a little bit. "Carry this one," she says, handing the candy to Rachel. She takes her sister's hand and tries to go towards the front door of a house with a decorated yard full of lights and pumpkins. Santana stops her with a look. She thinks for a minute and then takes Rachel's hand, standing between the two teenagers. "Please," she adds.

The three make their way from house to house together, Camila usually standing between them and swinging their hands. They lift her up a couple of times and she giggles. A few times, Santana stops them and scares some children, sometimes taking their candy and sometimes not. Rachel can only laugh as Camila tries to help her sister by jumping out from behind her. The little girl isn't scary in her cheerleader costume, so she just kinds of jumps around yelling while her sister does all the work.

Santana and Rachel don't talk about school. They say nothing of Mister Schuester's feud with Coach Sylvester, or the rapidly approaching Sectionals. They don't talk about Finn, Puck, Brittany, or Quinn and her now very public pregnancy.

They talk instead of Halloweens past, of pumpkin carving and old costumes. They laugh and play with Camila, the five-year-old acting as a welcome buffer between them. It's fun; the whole night is just pure fun and it's more than Rachel ever hoped for.

Camila eventually gets tired and starts whining more, her legs hurting and her arms weighed down with candy. She asks Rachel if she'll carry her back to the car, and when Santana protests, Rachel just scoops the little girl up and settles her on her hip. She's small enough that it's no problem holding her and there's something about walking next to a smiling Santana while holding a child that's heavy and strangely emotional in places Rachel doesn't quite understand. So she walks quietly and doesn't even try to dissect those weird places.

Within minutes of the drive home, Camila falls asleep in the back seat, her head leaning against the window and bags of candy resting on the seat next to her. She clutches her little orange pumpkin tightly in her arms. The ride is mostly silent, Rachel trying to savor the last moments of the best Halloween she's had in years. She knows that if they do this again, it won't be for another year.

"We're not friends," Santana repeats, growing somber as she stops in front of Rachel's house.

"I know," Rachel answers.

The other girl nods, clearing her throat. "I'll see you next Halloween?"

"Technically, you'll see me at school Monday," Rachel mutters.

Santana reaches into the backseat and grabs a couple of bags, handing them to Rachel. "You know what I mean, hobbit," she whispers. If they were anywhere else and it were any other time, 'hobbit' would be an insult. But there's a soft smile playing on her face as she says it and it reminds Rachel that it was once a term of endearment.

"You really hurt me, Santana," Rachel says.

The other brunette shrugs at her. "I'll probably do it again," she murmurs honestly. "But never on October 31st."

Rachel holds out her hand. "Until next year, then."

Santana shakes it firmly, nodding at her. "Next year."

She leans across the car and kisses Rachel's cheek, because that's how they always used to end Halloween - with a kiss on the cheek or the forehead. The shorter girl watches her drive off until she's turned a corner and is out of sight.

Leroy is waiting for her when she walks in the house. "And how was your night?"

She smiles and hands him a chocolate bar. "It was good."

At school, nothing changes and they go about their lives like they always do. A few weeks later, when everything is falling apart at Sectionals and everyone is turning on their teammates, Santana admits the she likes the glee club and that it's the best part of her day. Rachel thinks about car rides with little sisters singing Lady Gaga as loud as they can, and about childhood days spent singing along to the likes of Bette Midler and Jack the Pumpkin King, and it's easy for her to say, "I believe you."

* * *

Rachel's junior year gets off to a rough start. She makes some bad decisions about a new girl named Sunshine and the whole thing almost ends with her getting kicked out of the club. Sunshine was too much of a threat to Rachel and she needs applause like she needs air.

She starts the year with Finn, the boy she's wanted for a while, and while they're not perfect, Rachel believes in his leading man potential. Leroy thinks that she loves the idea of Finn more than the boy himself (something about her being so determined to be a leading lady with a proper leading man that she'll date someone twice her height and half her intelligence.)

Finn is sweet and he tries and most people don't make half as much effort with her as he does. So Rachel tells her dad that she loves Finn and that she has fun with him, being the Janet to his Brad.

After their Time Warp performance for an empty auditorium, Rachel gets a text message from Santana and it surprises her. The two have had a handful of interactions their junior year and Rachel isn't expecting Santana to keep with their Halloween agreement. But sure enough, just days before October 31st, there's a message in her inbox telling her to be ready at five on Halloween. Almost immediately, another text comes in saying that she shouldn't dress up and should wear comfortable shoes.

Rachel spends the next several days wondering what Santana has planned for them. Finn asks her to spend Halloween with him, but she tells him that she can't (she never mentions that going to a party at Puck's house holds little appeal to her.) When he presses her, she makes up something about plans with her fathers. Rachel doesn't like lying to Finn, hates lying to anyone really, but she knows that she can't tell him about her Halloween friendship with Santana, for any of their sakes.

She dresses simply on October 31st, just as Santana told her. She wears a regular skirt and blouse and debates whether she's chosen appropriately for much longer than she should.

Leroy comes into her room just before five and asks why she keeps changing her clothes."I didn't know you had a date with Finn tonight," he teases, leaning against her door frame.

"I don't," she says simply. He quirks an eyebrow at her, and she sighs. "I have plans with Santana."

Leroy clears his throat. "Are you sure that's a good idea?" he asks.

Rachel is silent as she smoothes her pants down with her palms. On some days, when she really thinks about it or when Santana sends some biting insult her way, it really hurts that she can only be this person once a year. But on other days, she thinks about Halloween day and how much fun she has on their holiday. The glee club is her family, but they aren't always her friends, and on her more self-conscious days, Rachel will take anything she can get.

She thinks about the Santana that she knows, the sweet girl with the angry home who held her hand and shared her bed and her candy with Rachel, who kept her safe and kissed her cheek until she blushed. They had been children then, but Rachel sees hints of  _that_  Santana sometimes and it gives her hope that maybe her friend is still in there.

"Rachel?" she hears Leroy say.

"It's the best idea for today," she settles on. She bites her lip. "Don't tell daddy, please."

Leroy shrugs, striding over to her and wrapping his arms around her. She sighs into his embrace, letting his warmth and familiar scent wrap around her and calm her nerves. "I didn't last time, and I won't this time," he says. He drops a kiss to her head just as the doorbell rings.

When he swings the door open, Rachel hovering behind him, a couple of children are standing there. "Trick or treat," they chant together. Behind them, leaning against a support beam, is Santana. She's smiling at the kids as Leroy makes a big show of giving them candy. She spots Rachel and then gestures for her to join her.

Rachel kisses her dad on the cheek and grabs a jacket before she squeezes around the kids on her doorstep. "Are you ready to go?" Santana asks. Rachel nods and waves to Leroy as they stride down the pathway towards the street.

Santana has a new car this year, just like she said she would. It's some kind of black sports car that Rachel doesn't know the name of. Its leather seats squeak as she slides into the passenger seat.

"No Camila this year?"

Santana settles into the driver's side, putting on her seatbelt and starting the car. "She wanted to go trick-or-treating with her friends, and I love that kid, but I am  _not_ supervising ten little kids," she answers. "Plus, I didn't really want to make the drive with a fix-year old."

Rachel frowns as they pull away from her house. "How far are we going?"

"We're going to Columbus," Santana says. "Well, close to Columbus, so like an hour and a half."

"Wow, you're just desperate to make sure that no one sees us, aren't you?" Rachel shoots at her, hating the bitterness that seeps into her voice. She crosses her arms.

"Shit, Berry, it's not like that," Santana sighs with a shake of her head. "There's a bitchin' fall festival outside Columbus and I wants to get my corn maze on."

"Oh," the shorter girl says simply. "You could at least call me Rachel."

"Sorry," the other brunette shrugs. "Old habits die hard or whatever."

The pair makes idle chitchat as Santana drives. They have a brief disagreement about what music to listen to, and spend more time discussing it than they should. Santana eventually lets Rachel choose their music for the ride to Columbus as long as she gets the radio on the way home.

Just as they had the previous year, Santana and Rachel keep their topics superficial. They speak about school a little and about glee, but only because everything else is too deep for Halloween.

"You and Finnocence threw the duets contest, didn't you?" Santana eventually asks. "Just be honest because I know that you did."

"What?" Rachel cries. "I would never sacrifice a competition."

"Oh, you totally did," the other girl smirks. "You would never go through with something that  _obviously_  offensive. I've done mashup contests with you, Rachel. You study musical theater and shit and put way too much thought into that crap. You would  _never_  think what you guys did was a good idea."

Rachel is impressed, honestly, by how much thought Santana has put into her performance with Finn. She normally assumes that the other girl doesn't spare her much thought apart from Halloween. "And just how would you know that?"

Santana rolls her eyes. "I'm not stupid. Just because we aren't friends doesn't mean I don't know you," she says. "Plus, everyone knows me and Mercedes should've won. We killed that duet." Rachel opens her mouth and Santana holds a hand up. "I just want to know why you did it, that's all. I went to Breadstix every night for two weeks and made my peace with that loss.

"Finn and I took it upon ourselves to do something that we thought would persuade Sam to stay in the glee club," Rachel admits.

"Yeah, but now I have to watch the grandchildren of the  _Village of the Damned_  walk around everywhere," the other girl laughs.

"You mean Quinn?" she asks. Santana nods and Rachel swats her arm, smiling despite herself. "You're incorrigible."

"I'm just being honest," Santana smirks. "Sam and Quinn look like they just walked out Midwich."

"You know, I only saw that movie because of you," Rachel says, breaking through their laughter with a serious thought.

"Me?"

"Mm-hmm," she hums. "I spent one night watching horror movies because I remembered you telling me that people are meant to watch scary movies on Halloween."

"Which Halloween was it?" Santana questions. Rachel watches her grip on the steering wheel tighten.

"I was...twelve, I think."

Santana doesn't say anything, but as she drives, she pulls a small bag out from behind her seat. She drops it into Rachel's lap without a word and turns the radio up. When Rachel pulls open the bag, she finds a mask. It's a little faded from time, but Rachel knows exactly what it is. She runs her fingers across it, tracing the contours of the small pumpkin face in her hands. She feels tears sting her eyes as the mask grins up at her evilly.

"I - I threw this away," she whispers.

"Yeah, I was there," Santana murmurs softly. "I fished it out after you left."

"Why?" is all she can think to ask.

"I," the taller girl pauses. "I was wearing that mask when I met you. You were my best friend for years. God, that shit means something, okay? I'm not a fucking monster."

"You broke my heart," Rachel says honestly, because if they're having this conversation, she might as well lay all her cards out on the table. "And now you're only my friend once a year. So it must not mean very much."

Tear still sting her eyes and she bites her bottom lip. Halloween isn't supposed to be like this anymore. But it is and it makes her heart shudder and quake with pain and memories that she wants to let go.

"I can't be anything else for you, Rachel," Santana says after a moment, her expression pained. "I'm not, fuck. I'm not good for people. So this," she mutters, grabbing at the mask Rachel is holding, "this is all I can give you. And if you don't want it, just fucking say the word and I'll take you home."

Rachel doesn't know Santana well anymore, and the other girl has changed over the years, grown up in ways and through situations that Rachel doesn't even know about. But there are plenty of things that she still knows about Santana, plenty of things that she knows haven't changed that much - the mischievous tilt of Santana's head when she thinks of devious things, the smirk that comes across her face when she comes up with some biting remark for someone, the way she laughs and the very real and very full smile on her face when she sings with the glee club.

"No," she says softly, gripping the hand holding the mask and lacing their fingers together the same way that they used to. "Let's go to the festival and get lost in the corn maze together."

Santana glances over at her, the corners of her lips lifting a bit. "Okay."

Rachel feels a pressure on her hand and she smiles. There are other things about Santana that Rachel doesn't need to see to understand that they remain unchanged; she can hear every single one of them in the way the cheerleader speaks and Rachel can practically hear Maria Lopez drilling them into the other girl's head (has heard them said in person, a few times.) Everyone knows that Santana got plastic surgery over the summer and Rachel can easily imagine Maria hovering next to her in the doctor's office, telling her it's the only way for her to make anyone want her.

Santana tries to take her hand back a couple of times, but Rachel doesn't let her and eventually, she stops trying.

* * *

"What do you want to do first?" Santana asks.

Rachel takes a look around, surveying the festival. There are carnival rides set between booths selling food and souvenirs; there are some games spread out across the field they're in, each showing off large stuffed animals that can be won. And just as Santana said, there was a corn maze adjacent to the festival.

"It doesn't really matter," Rachel smiles. "Anything."

Santana's response is to drag Rachel on every ride that goes fast and/or high off the ground. They go on rides that spin and ones they have to be strapped into. A couple of them go upside down and Rachel screams the entire time while Santana laughs. The taller girl teases her playfully and they share an overpriced bottle of water.

They try their hand at a couple of games, but neither of them is any good. The only game booth where they get anything is one run by a boy their age and they only reason they get anything is because Santana flirts with him. She flashes him a seductive smile as she leans across the counter, and he easily gives her a small stuffed black cat with green eyes. She instantly gives it to a surprised Rachel before leaving the dumbfounded boy behind. The shorter girl can't help but giggle a little bit, remembering how much fun it is to be on Santana's side.

It's dark now and the entire festival is lit up. Children run around the field, ducking and weaving around their parents. Teenagers like them, mostly large groups, meander around. Rachel sees several couples walking around, of a variety of ages, many of them holding hands. She has the sudden urge to reach out and grab Santana's hand as she walks closely beside her, holding the plush cat that the other girl got her. Rachel pushes the urge down, thinking of Finn, the boyfriend she had somehow forgotten in the midst of her time with Santana.

They're walking towards the Ferris wheel when Santana suddenly grabs her, cursing. "Shit shit shit," she mutters.

"Santana? What are you doing?" Rachel asks as Santana pulls her by the hand into the corn maze, grumbling in Spanish.

"Fuck," the other girl says. "What is she doing here?" she cries, turning a couple of random corners within the maze.

Santana looks incredibly frustrated, some mix between angry and anguished, and Rachel stops suddenly, forcing Santana to as well. "What is who doing here?" she asks.

"Brittany!" Santana says like it should be the most obvious thing in the world. "And she's with the cripple! What the fuck?"

"The - you mean Artie?"

"Do you know another cripple?" Santana snaps at her. "Fuck."

Rachel frowns. This is drama that she's unprepared for. This is their holiday and their real lives aren't supposed to interfere with that. She realizes then what Halloween is like: it's some kind of dream, some world where she can pretend like nothing is wrong, like she's still a nine-year-old girl running through abandoned houses and hiding candy in shoes. They're a dream, her and Santana and what they're doing. And the dream is breaking apart.

Santana kicks at the ground, scuffing her converse across the dirt. "I can't believe she's here with him."

Rachel takes a deep breathe. There are many things she can think to say to Santana about Brittany (like everyone else in glee, she heard about them having sex during their sophomore year) but all of them are potentially over the invisible line between who they are on October 31st and who they are the rest of the year. Santana is shaking her head and looks like she might be trying not to cry and Rachel knows that the line has already been destroyed.

"You should tell her how you feel," Rachel tries, settling for something vague.

Santana's head raises and she stares at Rachel. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The shorter girl shrugs, looking down at their still-clasped hands. "I only mean that Brittany is your best friend and if you're uncomfortable with her pursuing a relationship with Artie, you should say something. As her friend," she backtracks a little bit under Santana's intense gaze, but there's something there on the girl's face that says that they both know what Rachel's really talking about.

"I'm not gay," Santana says, pulling her hand away from Rachel quickly.

"I never meant to imply that you are," Rachel answers, smiling softly. "But if you were, it wouldn't matter. It would be okay."

She expects Santana to snap at her again, but she says nothing for a moment and bites her lip. "I'm not, though," she says quietly. But there's still something there and they both know what she might mean when she follows it with a shrug.

"Okay," Rachel murmurs, reaching out to take Santana's hand again. "I believe you said something about 'getting your corn maze on?'"

Santana exhales heavily, nodding and smiling gratefully. "Yeah, let's do this."

They spend more time in the corn maze than they should, both if them purposefully taking wrong turns. Santana does it so she won't have to see Brittany and Rachel does it for Santana. At one point, Santana stops them and wraps her arms around Rachel. She presses their bodies together and holds her close until the smaller girl returns her hug.

Rachel feels Santana drop a kiss to the top of her head and she knows that it's the closest thing she'll ever get to a thank you. Rachel ignores the way Santana's body feels against hers, the way her head lies softly atop her own and her fingers run across Rachel's back while they stand there. When they pull away and Santana smiles at her softly, Rachel ignores the way her heart flutters before it seems to stop for a second.

A few weeks later, Santana snaps at her that she took Finn's virginity during Madonna week last year. She slept with Finn and Finn lied about it and an angry Rachel makes a bad decision with Noah. And when the dust settles and all the words are spoken and all the people are gone, Rachel sobs in the hallway and feels like her heart has been broken by two people and not just one.

* * *

Rachel's senior year, like so many others before it, starts with frustration and drama. She and Kurt get a rude awakening in the form of some very talented teenagers who are just as good, if not better, than they are. It's the first time she feels like her dream might be crumbling. They come up with a plan to help their resumes, a performance of "West Side Story."

Shelby comes back to Lima, bringing back both Quinn and Noah's daughter and the bitter memories of being left by the same mother twice. Rachel presses on, though, and auditions for the role of Maria like her life depends on it (and it sort of does.) She doesn't anticipate Mercedes' reaction to the decision to split the role between them, and when the other girl quits the glee club and leaves them all for Shelby's new group, Rachel's upgrade to the  _only_  Maria feels like a hollow victory.

The play's casting has an unexpected effect on her dynamic with Santana, who wins the role of Anita. Suddenly they're not just having limited interactions standing next to each other in rehearsals, but they're being forced to work together. Maria and Anita have scenes together, whole songs even, and the pair ends up spending about as much time working with the whole group as they do with each other, rehearsing in private with just Mr. Schuester or Coach Beiste (or sometimes, with just each other.)

They snipe at each other at first, because there's still some residual drama from their junior year lingering between them. Yet by the end of the first week of play rehearsals, it's harder for them to carry on the way they normally do. Rachel thinks that maybe there's just something about fall setting in, bringing with it jackets and changing leaves, that makes everything different.

They still avoid big topics, like Brittany and Rachel's sudden run against her for class president. They don't talk about Finn, either, about the drama of Santana sleeping with him and the growing feeling in the pit of Rachel's stomach that he's going to stay in Ohio while she goes off to New York. But things are still easier between them and they bond as Maria and Anita in unexpected ways.

Rachel and Santana make plans for Halloween together, talking after a long day of rehearsal and practice. Camila wants to go trick-or-treating with her big sister again, and Rachel's more than happy to accompany them. Santana tells her to not to dress in something crazy and outrageous, which seems ridiculous to Rachel considering her costume choices throughout their lives have been fairly modest. Santana makes a joke about Rachel being a generally loud person and it ends with them both laughing and getting more than a few odd looks from the rest of the "West Side Story" cast.

Rachel has to lie to Finn about Halloween again, which she hates. But Santana tells her that she has to lie to Brittany so it's all fair and even somehow. She briefly considers throwing together something crazy just to spite the other girl, but instead chooses a simple witch costume that reminds them of the year she went out with Santana and Noah.

When Finn asks, Rachel tells him that she's being dragged to a costume party with her fathers. He wonders if they would be willing to let him tag along, and when she says no, it's not a lie (if there had been a real party, her dads definitely wouldn't invite Finn.)

On October 31st, Santana and Rachel take Camila out to Northside first. Rachel watches as Santana's normal scream-and-jump tactics for scaring candy away from kids turns into a sneakier method that involves some light stalking. She tells Rachel that it's appropriate Masky behavior, but again the reference goes over her head. Camila decides that they have to show Rachel  _Marble Hornets_  soon because not know about it is "super lame," according to the seven-year-old.

Camila finds some kids that she likes and goes house-to-house with them as Rachel and Santana follow behind her, the latter occasionally drifting away to creepily follow after some kids. Rachel keeps an eye on Camila when Santana does, having long since given up on ever getting Santana to stop. Santana really just likes scaring people; the candy is a bonus.

"How's your dad?" Rachel eventually asks as they stand on the sidewalk, watching Santana's sister at the door of a well-decorated house.

"He's okay," she answers. "You know how he is; if he's not doing work at the hospital, he's doing work at home. Hiram?" she asks knowingly.

The shorter girl nods. "I'm pretty sure they're in it together," she only half-jokes, because they just might be for all the hours they both spend working.

Camila comes back to them, giggling when Santana gives her some stolen treats to put in her pumpkin bucket. The little girl leads them over to the next house, taking Rachel's hand as she does. She marches all three of them up to the door, where Santana and Rachel hold out sacks of candy that Santana's procured for them.

The small girl sometimes takes her sister and her sister's friend to the door with her and sometimes she leaves them behind on the sidewalk to go with some other kids. "Diego came back," Santana says eventually.

"Oh?" Rachel asks, her eyebrows rising. " _Oh_."

Santana just nods. "He got tired of Jersey or where-ever-the-fuck and moved back in over the summer," she responds, watching her sister grin in glee as more candy is dropped into her pumpkin.

Rachel follows her gaze towards the little girl. "Is - I mean, how is he with Camila?" she questions. It's a simple question, but they both know the real meaning behind it, that there are things about Diego Lopez and what he did to his step-sister that should have been reported to the police. Rachel didn't understand these things when they happened because she was too young, but when she got older, she eventually realized that they should have told someone.

"He's really good with her actually," Santana says. Camila comes back down the path to them and the three walk down the street together, the little girl babbling between them as Rachel stares at the other teenager.

"How is he with you?" she asks when the leaves them to go up to the front door of the next house they reach.

"He's not bad," Santana tells her. "Better than he used to be."

Santana remains quiet for a little bit as they walk, slipping her Halloween mask back on her face. While Camila sits with some kids comparing their candy, Rachel reaches over and tugs Santana's mask off of her head. "What are you doing?" she cries.

Rachel pulls off her witch hat, sliding the Masky face on her head before she sets her hat back in place. "Okay," she says, her voice slightly muffled. "I've spent most of my life watching you scare candy away from small children. And you're going to teach me how to do it."

Santana laughs, shooting a look over at her little sister to check that she's still okay. "Rachel, some of these little kids are taller than you are."

"Just one time," Rachel pleads, watching through the eye holes as Santana continues to giggle. "I want to see what all the fuss is about."

The taller girl just shakes her head as she laughs. Rachel steps close to her, nudging her with her elbow. "Come on, Santana. We don't have all night."

"Oh god, okay," she says, putting a hand on Rachel's shoulder and pointing towards the kids Camila is standing with. "It's not hard. Just kind of creep over there. Take your time and don't go too fast or they'll see you. When you get close enough, just kind of jump and scream and grab one of them if you want. They spread out pretty quick and it's easy to grab their bags when they're scared."

"Wow, you really have a system worked out."

The other girl nods, smirking. "Works every time."

Rachel does as she's told, edging along the fence slowly. A couple of times, Santana gestures for her to stop and she does, standing as still as she possible can. As she gets closer to Camila and the other kids, she starts to feel a little guilty for what she's about to do and she doesn't understand how Santana can enjoy it as much as she does.

As Rachel prepares to jump and yell, Santana's little sister turns around. "Whatcha doin'?" she asks, just as Rachel raises her hands up.

The teenager quickly drops her arms and pulls Santana's mask off. She hears the other girl laughing somewhere behind her and her face burns. "Nothing," she says. "Are you ready to keep going, Camila?"

It's almost nine and even the neighborhood trick-or-treaters tend to disperse when the kids from other areas have to leave. The Lopez family lives in Northside, but Santana says that they shouldn't stay out too late.

The little girl nods, grabbing her candy and waving to her friends as she stands. As Santana and Rachel begin to walk, the taller brunette teases Rachel for her failed attempt at scaring a bunch of kids, and the shorter girl happily takes her jokes because she knows they're not meant maliciously. And Santana keeps laughing and wiping at her eyes and Rachel just smiles coyly because she still knows the best way to take Santana's mind off of things on Halloween.

As the walk, Camila starts kicking at pumpkins sitting out on the sidewalk. She doesn't do any damage to them, can't even knock any of them over because she's so little. She mostly just nudges them until they're dangerously close to teetering over.

"You shouldn't do that, you know," Rachel says, a hint of warning in her voice.

"Why not?" the little girl asks, sliding into place beside her. She frowns.

"Halloween is the one night where all sorts of spirits and ghosts roam the earth," Rachel tells her. "The jack-o-lanterns are supposed to protect us from them. If you knock them over or put them out too soon, then who knows what kinds of things can get us."

Camila pouts, a look of fear coming across her face. She grabs her sister's hand, tugging on it. "That's not true," she cries. "Santí, is that true?"

Santana exchanges a look with Rachel before she stares back down at her sister with fake worry. "I would listen to Rachel if I were you, Cam. I told you, she knows all about that stuff," she says.

The girl gasps and refuses to let go of Santana's hand for a long time, eyeing every carved pumpkin they pass.

They drop Camila off at home soon after that, the little girl yawning as they reach the front door. True to her word, Rachel goes through her candy and grabs the vegan-friendly sweets before handing the little girl the rest of it. Camila wraps her arms around Rachel's legs and squeezes them before she runs inside, bringing smiles to both teenagers' faces.

When Santana pulls her car up to the Berry house, she parks and gives Rachel a hug, both of them lingering in the embrace. Santana kisses her cheek, per tradition, and Rachel feels like they're on their way towards being the kind of people who are friends every day.

West Side Story opens just a couple of weeks after Halloween, and they get a standing ovation at every performance. The first person that Rachel hugs after every single show is Santana. And they smile at each other, right there on stage in front of everyone.

* * *

By October 31st, 2012, Rachel and Finn have broken up. He proves that nagging feeling in her stomach right by wanting to stay in Ohio. He'll go to school, maybe, but if he ever does, it'll be close to home.

Rachel's dream has always been New York, always, and even though she ultimately doesn't get into NYADA, she gets accepted at NYU and is more than happy to have a musical theater program to call home. She and Finn talk about trying out a long-distance relationship, but it quickly becomes apparent that they're not the kind of people who can handle it.

Around the same time, Santana comes out officially. It's the worst kept secret at McKinley, but Rachel has never been more proud of the girl as she announces both her sexuality and her relationship with Brittany. Unfortunately, their plans diverge as Santana sets her sights on college in New York and the blonde decides to pursue a career dancing in Los Angeles. There's still too much heartache haunting stretches of their friendship and things like jealousy and Santana's never-ending privacy drive a wedge between them. They're still friends, they'll  _always_  be friends, but they decide that it's all they should be.

Santana ends up at NYU as well, setting her sights on something like political science or sociology, and she and Rachel bond over their semi-recent break-ups. They study together and Rachel makes the other girl listen to her practice sometimes. Santana goes along with it, rolling her eyes but smiling nonetheless, and Rachel thinks that being away from all the pressure of Lima is really good for her, for both of them.

There are several parties around campus, and New York is full of things to do on Halloween, but the holiday falls on a problematic Wednesday. Santana and Rachel have a midterm the next day in their shared english class, so the smaller brunette decides that they should be good students and spend the evening studying. Santana is determined to go to as many parties as she can, but Rachel promises candy and an 'A' on their test and it's enough to sway her. Rachel thinks the fact they're sort of friends on days that aren't Halloween helps convince her, even if she won't admit it.

Rachel's roommate goes out for the night and Santana comes over around seven, banging on the door loudly. "I brought pizza," she announces as the other girl opens the door. "And we can study, but shit, this is Halloween so we better watch at least one scary movie, okay?"

"I hope that you've chosen a vegan selection for this evening," Rachel says. "And is that a bag of candy? Santana, I told you that I already got some."

Santana rolls her eyes, dropping her bookbag on to the floor and setting the pizza on the coffee table. "Yeah, this is  _my_  candy," she smirks. "And of course the pizza's vegan. Give me a little credit."

They settle on the couch together and Santana flips the television on, finding a scary movie marathon immediately. "Why do I feel like you're going to be a big distraction tonight?" Rachel asks. She tucks her legs underneath her and leans against the armrest.

Santana shrugs, putting her feet on the table. "Probably because I will be."

They make idle chitchat as they eat and when the  _Dawn of the Dead_  remake comes on, Santana turns the t.v. up. Rachel hates zombies, especially fast ones, and the other girl knows it. She smirks and refuses to change the channel and Rachel ends up eating with one hand and covering her eyes with the other.

There's a knock at the door and Rachel jumps, flinging her pizza out of her hands on to the carpet. Santana laughs at her and stands up. "Oh, god, you didn't invite that chick who sits with us in class do you? Because I seriously hate that girl."

The smaller girl glares at her while she cleans up the mess. "No," she answers. "I didn't invite anyone. And for the record, her name is Danielle, and she's not that bad."

Santana's eyes narrow. "No, she's worse, and if she's on the other side of this door, I am out of here."

When they open the door, Danielle isn't standing there. There's a group of kids standing there instead, chanting "trick or treat" at the pair.

"Oh, um," Rachel stutters, grabbing the bag of sweets Santana brought. "What's going on?" she asks her R.A. She gives the bag to Santana and she passes out some candy to each kid.

"They're from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America," the older student answers. "There are groups going through all the dorms collecting candy from all the rooms that didn't opt out. You didn't say anything, Rachel. I can take you out of the rotation if you want?"

Her hall resident assistant eyes Santana curiously as she bends down and starts talking to some of the kids about their costumes. Rachel watches Santana, too, and the sight of her fixing a little boy's mask makes her smile. "No," she says. "You can keep us in."

They study very little and spend most of their time giving out their candy to the kids that come around. "I didn't know being on the other side could be fun," Santana admits a little later. "My only regret is that  _I_  don't have a costume, 'cause that shit is the best part."

And Rachel gets a ridiculous idea, a terribly cheesy thought that she can't shake. Somewhere between their sixth group of kids and fourth failed attempt at studying, she disappears to her room and returns with a little plastic tiara.

"Oh my god, seriously?" Santana laughs.

She doesn't struggle as Rachel leans up and fixes it on to the taller girl's hair. "You're the  _princessa_  now," she giggles.

"I can't believe you kept this."

"I would never throw it away," she smiles. "Camila went through all that trouble."

Santana smiles at her as there's another knock on the door. "Yeah, she asked if me and my Halloween friend could come take her out this year," she starts, shrugging. "I told her that maybe she could see my Halloween friend over Christmas break."

"I would love to," Rachel says, watching the other girl pass out candy. Santana hasn't outright invited her to anything, but Rachel understands what Santana is really saying and she quite likes the idea of turning their Halloween friendship into a Christmas friendship.

"Yeah, okay, don't get all sappy on me over there, Berry," Santana smirks, nudging her.

When Santana leaves for the night, Rachel stands on her tiptoes to kiss the other girl's cheek. She moves at the last minute and hits the corner of her mouth instead, surprising both of them.

"I'm glad that we're friends again," she says, blushing.

"Yeah, sorry about that," Santana admits, ducking her head. She bites her lip and stares at Rachel so genuinely that the smaller girl almost forgets to breathe for a second. She hugs her for a long moment and thinks that there's something magical about candy and costumes and horror films.

Rachel says nothing, but when she leans up again, her lips find Santana's, purposefully this time. The taller girl runs her hand through Rachel's hair, pulling her closer and forcing their kiss deeper until Rachel has to pull away because she really does forget to breathe. She feels Santana drop something into the pocket of her hoodie, and later, long after the girl is gone, she finds a chocolate bar and some hard candies and smiles.

Definitely something magical.

* * *

"Stop fussing, sweetie," she says sweetly, fixing the hat on top of her son's head. He has on a jumpsuit, a little sock monkey costume with a matching hat that has a face on it. Luis wiggles a little bit as Rachel picks him up, settling him on her hip.

"Are you guys ready in here?" Santana asks, peeking her head in through the door. "Are you not wearing your costume, Rach?"

She shakes her head as her wife comes in, decked out in a full black robe with a hood. "Someone has to watch our children while you play around," she smirks. "And just who are you supposed to be?"

"I'm the Grim Reaper, obviously," she answers. Their son wiggles a little more, reaching out his hands toward the other brunette. Santana takes him from Rachel, kissing his forehead. "And I watch the kids, too, isn't that right, Luis?" she sing-songs, pulling a face at the little boy.

Rachel rolls her eyes, but smiles because she can't help herself. Fifteen Halloweens after she and Santana got together, the other woman still just does things to her that make her grin like a fool and feel like a little kid all over again.

A little brunette whirlwind runs in, her cape billowing behind her. "Momma, can we go now?" the seven-year-old asks.

Rachel smiles down at her daughter. "Yes, we're ready now, Sophie," she says. "Have you got your fangs? You can't be a vampire queen without your fangs."

She hears Santana chuckle behind her as they leave and her smile widens.

As they walk through their neighborhood, Sophie runs ahead of them, meeting up with some kids she knows. Santana takes Rachel's hand, threading their fingers together, and they walk in companionable silence. The taller woman takes Luis up to a few houses and lets him hold on to a bright orange pumpkin-shaped bucket with a few pieces of candy in it while Rachel keeps a watchful eye on Sophie.

Santana pulls the little girl aside at one point and takes half the candy from her bag, dropping it into the son's pumpkin. He giggles and Sophie heads to the next house.

"What was that about?" Rachel asks.

"Puck told me about this awesome trick where you take stuff out of your kid's bag and keep it with you. Then when they go door-to-door, people give them more candy because they think, 'oh, this kid doesn't have a lot so I should give them more.' It's genius," Santana answers enthusiastically.

Rachel rolls her eyes and laughs. "There are some things I will never understand about you, Santana, and your obsession with candy is one of them."

"That just means more candy for me, huh, Luis?" she smirks, tickling the boy she's carrying.

The pair continues to walk down their street, trailing after their other child. These are Rachel's favorite Halloweens; not the ones when she was a little girl, getting into trouble with her best friend; not the ones when she was a teenager, reconnecting once a year with someone she cared about; not the ones when she was in college celebrating with her girlfriend. No, the ones where she gets to walk next to her wife through their neighborhood, playing with their children -  _these_  are Rachel's favorites.

"Halloween is the best holiday," Santana says eventually.

"Why do you say that?" Rachel asks, knowing fully well the answer. They have this same conversation every year and she never gets tired of it.

As the other woman opens her mouth, they hear their daughter shout. "Mom, that boy just took my candy!" she yells, pointing down the sidewalk.

The thief, a boy from down the street, is moving slowly, caught behind a large group of kids with their parents. "Well, go get him!" Santana yells back. "He can't get that far!"

Sophie takes off after the boy and Rachel and Santana pick up their pace just to make sure nothing goes wrong. "You shouldn't encourage her to run off like that," Rachel says, scolding her wife while she does nothing to stop their daughter.

Santana gestures ahead of them, where Sophie has caught up with the boy and is arguing with him over her bag. "They didn't get very far," she says, smirking at her wife. "And I figured, what's the worst that can happen? She meets the love of her life?"

Their daughter hits the boy in the arm and grabs her sack of candy away from him, glaring. Rachel and Santana laugh and Rachel is sure that she falls more in love every Halloween.

The End


End file.
